The Ahmedabad-based Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd is all set to launch two new products for treating pulmonary tuberculosis in adult patients. The products have been developed in collaboration with the Jammu-based Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM), it is learnt.

The two drug formulations, the first in the line of allopathic drugs developed by the institute to address this usually neglected disease, have been handed over to the company by the institute earlier. The company in collaboration with the institute has conducted all the phases of clinical trials and obtained approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), according to IIIM officials.

The company is planning to launch the products in the market soon, commented I A Modi, chairman, Cadila Pharmaceuticals. "The products will be introduced in the market soon. It will bring down the tuberculosis drug cost to 25 per cent from the current products," Modi told Pharmabiz.

These two drug formulations, for which the bioavailability enhancers were developed from an ayurvedic formulation, are patented by IIIM in India, US and Europe. The trials on human patients were conducted in various parts of the country and it was proved beyond doubt that the two drug formulations developed by IIIM, Jammu worked successfully on the adult patients requiring the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis, claimed the institute.

The project was an attempt to experiment the new concept of bioavailability enhancers discovered in the institute to successfully apply in developing the formulations. "This new concept is now accepted all over the world for the development of other drugs," explained the officials. The advantage of the new drug formulations is that by adding the component isolated from a herb and using lower doses of the drug, associated side effects will be reduced without affecting its bioavailability or efficacy. However, the Cadila Pharma officials were not reachable for comment.

As per the report of Central TB Division, Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2008, it is estimated that two of every five Indians are infected with the TB bacillus. In India 1.8 million tuberculosis cases occur annually, accounting for one-fifth of the world's new TB cases and two-thirds of the cases in the South-East Asia Region. Around 0.8 million have sputum positive pulmonary TB. One sputum positive patient can infect 10-15 persons in a year if left untreated.

The disease is more affected in the population between the age group of 15 years to 54 years. Over 70 per cent of TB cases in India occur in this economically productive age group, elaborates the division.