Six new collaborative projects between public funded institutions and industry as well as eight loans for R&D in the private sector enterprises have been supported under Drug and Pharmaceutical Research Programme (DPRP) during the last financial year. But the allocation for the programme has come down marginally over the years.

As the efforts under the programme started producing tangible results, phase 3 clinical trials for an Indian drug for malaria have commenced while new products for Kala Azar and anti -AIDS have been launched in the market during the year, sources in the Department of Science and Technology (DST) said.

Under the collaborative projects, a lesion from human prostate cancer cell study and a promise for human cancer treatment was taken up between Visva Bharati, Santiniketan and East India Pharmaceuticals Works Ltd, Kolkata. Anti-aging and anti-wrinkle formulation with matrix metalloproteinase inhibitory activity from natural resources between Jadavpur University, Kolkata and Parker Robinson (P) Ltd, Kolkata was another one.

Other projects included rabies DNA vaccine: bioprocess optimization and immuno-genecity studies between JNU, New Delhi and Parenteral Biotech Ltd, Noida, optimization of a recombinant R-phenylacetyl carbinol (R-PAC) production process between Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai and Embio Ltd., Mumbai, scaling up and optimization of a mammalian cell culture system for the over expression of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies with specific reference to Rituximap between JNU, New Delhi and ARA Healthcare Pvt Ltd, Gurgaon, development of anti-microbial agents from soil microflora among CDRI, Lucknow, IMTECH, Chandigarh; SRISTI, Ahmedabad, and Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Bangalore.

Companies those availed research loans included Unimark Remedies Ltd, Mumbai., Wockhardt Ltd, Mumbai, Sun Pharma, Advanced Research Company Ltd, Mumbai, Cadila Healthcare, Ahmedabad, Sipra Labs Ltd, Hyderabad, Baijnath Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd, Kangra, Innovassynth Technologies (I) Ltd, Mumbai, and Helvetica Industries (P) Ltd, New Delhi. As part of support to national facilities, strengthening of existing facilities with a special emphasis to bio-equivalence study of drugs and metabolites in plasma by LC-MS/MS was taken up at Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

A total of Rs 78 crore was thus spent under the DPRP scheme during the year. But going by the allocations and utilizations, there was clearly a downward trend over the years. A total of Rs 500 crore had been allocated for the current Five Year Plan. During the first year of 2007-08, a total of Rs 118 crore was allocated and Rs 117.46 crore were utilized. During 2008-09, Rs 96.40 crore was used against the original allocation of Rs 100 crore. The allocation came down to Rs 96 crore during 2009-10 and only Rs 78 crore could be used. However, for the current year, the allocation was cut down drastically to Rs 50 crore, leaving a huge gap between the Plan allocation and the actuals in the first four years.