The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has approved a collaborative research project between Gurgaon based Life Care Innovations and Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGI), Chandigarh for developing a novel sustained release drug delivery system for treatment of TB.

The new system is expected to prove to be of immense help to the mostly rural TB patient population in the country as non-adherence to the present prolonged drug regime is considered to be the major problem that nullifies the effects of the treatment given to them. The research is intended to develop a system where the drug can be given once in a fortnight. The DST will be sanctioning Rs.70 lakh for conducting the research through its Drugs and Pharmaceutical Research Programme (DPRP). The three-year project, expected to cost Rs 1.4 crore will also find the company chiping in the rest of the amount. The research is planned in such a way that the new drug should enter pre-clinical trials within three years, DST sources said.

The department has recently approved a Ranbaxy- NIPER (National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research) collaborative project also under its DPRP programme. Here the research objective is to identify anti-asthma agents through computer aided design of novel inhibiters. Biological evaluation of the identified molecules would be taken up by Ranbaxy. The Rs 1.5 crore project will have equal funding from DST and Ranbaxy.

With this the department has utilized almost 85 per cent of the amount allotted to it for the current year under the DPRP programme. Of the Rs 10 crore outlay, the department had already sanctioned about Rs 7 crore for six various projects. The latest to receive sanctions were a collaborative research project between Mumbai based Food Drugs and Chemicals (FDC) Limited and National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune for design synthesis of new anti-fungal molecules.

During the current year, the department had sanctioned a national facility at National Institute for Pharmaceutical Education & Research (NIPER). The National Centre for Bioavailability Research is meant for initiating research in areas of drug delivery systems as well as drug development.

It had also cleared Rs 1.5 crore for a new LCMS (mass spectroscopy) facility at the National Center for Pharmacokinetics & Metabolic Studies at CDRI, Lucknow. The facility can be used for data generation for various drugs.

Excluding the recent two approvals, the department has sanctioned 35 projects worth Rs 55 crore as part of DPRP. The DST share in it is approximately Rs 25 crore while the rest were borne by the industry. The projects also included six ones from the Ayurveda sector, meant for the standardization and validation of traditional drugs.