The Department of Science and Technology (DST) is likely to approve six proposals, including those from pharma majors Ranbaxy and Nicholas Piramal for R&D loans under the Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Research Programme (DPRP).

The Department may approve funds of Rs 10 crore for three national facilities and two soft pharma loans, among the ten proposals being actively considered by the expert committee on the DPRP, sources said.

The DST will share the funding for upgrading clinical trial infrastructure and facilities at the central research institute of Unani medicines, Hyderabad, expansion of facility in the national centre for Pharmacokinetic and metabolic studies at the central drugs research institute, Lucknow and the facility for pharmacovigilance on drug residues and other toxic xenobiotics in veterinary products at the Tamil Nadu Veterinary Animal Sciences University, Chennai.

The Department will share the 50 per cent of the total costs of these facilities while the host institutions and other agencies would fund the rest.

It is also likely that a small-scale company Cellmax Pharma Ltd, Aligarh will also likely to get funding for developing recombinant products and diagnostic devices.

The expert committee met here recently to take up ten proposals and approved in principle the six proposals, while sending back or rejecting the rest.

Meanwhile, the DST had earlier approved ten projects worth Rs 30 crore this year and projects for the rest of the earmarked Rs 30 crore were in different stages, the sources said. Under the DPRP, the Government had set apart Rs 60 crore for the current financial year, after revising the initial outlay of Rs 130 crore for the want of sufficient proposals.

As per the revised allocation, Rs 35 crore was for soft loans on R&D and Rs 25 crore was for grant-in-aid for collaborative projects and facilities involving public sector research organizations. The DST sources hoped that the entire fund for soft-loans would be utilised this year.