The first Indo-Japanese international conference on ‘Advances in pharmaceutical research and technology: drug discovery, development and delivery,’ to be held from November 26 to 29, 2005 at Grand Hyatt Mumbai, would help the domestic pharma industry to tap the Japanese pharmaceutical market, the second largest in the world.
So far the Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers are yet to make significant presence in the $ 60-billion Japanese market. The Japanese manufacturers are now in the process of identifying potential companies in India and other South Asian countries discarding the Chinese manufacturers due to various reasons. Recently Indian companies like Ranbaxy, which entered into a JV with Nihon Pharmaceutical to co-develop an anti-diabetic drug, and Lupin, which tied up with Kyowa Pharmaceutical Industry have entered the Japanese market, noted industry sources.
The conference is being jointly organised by BV Patel Education Trust and PERD Centre, SciTech Centre, The Nagai Foundation, Japan and the Academy of Pharmaceutical Research and Technology of Japan, and co-sponsored by IDMA, Pharmexcil, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance and Indian Chapter of the Control Release Society of USA. The conference is designed to bridge the distance between R&D activities and pharma market and will provide a common platform to academicians, industrialists, research scientists and students to interact at international level to strengthen their research and also for business tie ups from the Pan Asian region, according to the organizers.
According to Ananth R Thakore, chairman of the Organising Committee, over 30 world-renowned scientists from Europe, Japan and USA have already confirmed to deliver talks and participate in the conference. Over 100 delegates from abroad, particularly from PAN Asian countries are expected along with about 300 delegates representing pharma majors from India.
The scientific programme is being designed to focus on recent technological advances and current concepts and developments in pharmaceutical research and technologies and will consist of plenary and invited lectures as well as poster presentations. Major thematic sessions are being planned on new drug discovery, which will include identification and validation of targets, finding and optimizing molecules, genomics and pharmacogenomics, biotech derived drugs and biotech approaches in drug discovery.
Similar New Drug Delivery Systems sessions will deal with technological and conceptual advances in getting the drugs to the site of actions by using conventional and non-conventional routes like drug delivery through lung, skin, preparations and delivery through nano-particles and nanotechnology, delivery of peptide and oligonucleotide drugs. The event also coincides with an exhibition of pharmaceutical products, services and high tech machineries, said the organisers.