The 25-year-old Regional Research Institute of Unani Medicine, Chennai, is stepping into a new era of drug research and delivery with a modernized institute set up at a cost of Rs.3.20 crore.

Sushma Swaraj, union minister for Health and Family Welfare, inaugurated the new institute complex at Royapuram on Tuesday. Fully funded by the central government and a peripheral research centre of the Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine (CCRUM) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the institute is one among the prime ISM drug research institutions in south India.

The renovated and modernized institute has an exclusive Drug Standardization Research Station and facility for clinical research, besides a separate unit to undertake survey and standardization of medicinal plants. In addition, treatment facilities at the institute has been strengthened with state of the art facilities to accommodate more inpatients, separate laboratories for pathology and biochemical tests, X-Ray unit, pharmacy, dispensary etc., according to Syed Khaleefathulla, vice-president of CCRUM.

The drug standardization unit of the institute has so far standardized about 190 herbal compound formulations of the tribals, and is in the process of helping them patent the same. As part of various projects, the medicinal plant survey unit of the institute had surveyed about six districts in Tamil Nadu and codified 8901 plant specimens and 258 tribal claims.

The hospital has treated more than 11 lakh patients so far, and the centre has been able to evolve a comprehensive clinical study reports on efficacy of many Unani medicines. The centre has been undertaking research and trials of Unani medicines to treat diseases like hepatitis, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, filariasis, malaria etc.

The institute successfully developed Unani medicine kit with drugs and had undertaken extensive research to treat malaria, elaborated the sources.