City-based Health Education Library for People (HELP), India's first and largest health education resource centre, is offering institutional membership to pharmaceutical companies.

Unichem Labs has become the first company to take the institutional membership. According to Dr Hufrish Suraliwala, HELP's Medical Information Manager, for an annual membership of Rs 5000, members can avail of the following benefits: full text articles from medical journals @ Rs 500 per article available in 10-15 days (regular rate: Rs 595), full text articles from medical journals on an urgent basis available in 4-5 days @ Rs 900 per article (regular rate: Rs 1000), annual subscription for MDConsult / MDConsult Cardiology @ Rs 8000 (regular rate: Rs 9000) and Visit www.mdconsultindia.com for a free trial, sponsorship of upto 5 doctors for MDConsult / MDConsult Cardiology @ Rs 5500 (regular rate: Rs 5995), 50% discount on photocopies at HELP, 50% discount on sale of health literature at HELP, and full waiver of the commercial charge of Rs 50 per turn for using services at HELP.

Pharmaceutical companies need to keep up-to-date, but subscribing to medical journals is expensive and medical text-books get out of date very soon, says Dr Suraliwala. In partnership with MDConsult, USA, HELP offers you access to the full-text of over 37 renowned reference books; full-texts articles of 48 of the world's best medical journals; information on 30,000 drugs; and 3000 patient education hand-outs, all online at one site. Croslands, Aristo, Duphar, Serum Institute of India Ltd., Unichem, Pfizer, Knoll, Sun Pharma, Glenmark, Dolphin Laboratories Ltd., Elder, Medley are the companies who order full-text articles from HELP.

Subscribers can also get a free 10-day demonstration of the power of the unique, constantly updated medical information available at MDConsult by logging on to www.MdConsultIndia.com

Industry managers can also take free trials of the new MDConsult databases like MDConsult Cardiology, MDConsult Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine, MDConsult Pain Medicine, and MDConsult Infectious Diseases.

Indian pharmaceutical companies can continue to access the world's largest online medical library for only Rs 9000 per year.

Those who have subscribed to MD Consult are Aventis, Merck, Modi-Mundipharma Ltd., Glenmark, Nicholas Piramal, Themis while Cipla, Novartis, Knoll and Group Pharma have gifted the service to doctors, she said.