The joint research programme initiated by Nicholas Piramal India Limited (NPIL) and Centre for Biochemical Technology (Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology), New Delhi is showing promising results with the scientists involved in research expecting to come out with patentable discoveries in the next few months.

They said that this would be enough to serve the basic objective of ''GenoMed'', a joint national initiative launched recently by ''GeneQuest'', a subsidiary of the drug major Nicholas Piramal India Limited (NPIL), and the research institution a year ago.

Scientists at ''GenoMed'', the incubation facility at the institute, have been working to understand the functions of certain genes, especially those that cause auto- immune diseases, diabetes, schizophrenia etc. It is known that the research on type II diabetics has shown much progress.

It should be noted that the ''epicentre'' of the diabetes epidemic is forecast to be in India and 40 per cent of the new cases is expected to be in South India. A WHO-supported global study has concluded that the number of adults with diabetes in the world will rise from 135 million in 1995 to 300 million in 2025. About 75 per cent of this increase will be in developing countries, with India and China accounting for the maximum numbers. From 19.4 million in 1995, India is expected to have a staggering headcount of 57.2 million diabetics by 2025.

The focus of the joint initiative is on ''functional genomics'' and probing further into the genetic variability in the Indian populations.

The sources expressed happiness over the progress of the research and hoped that it would help NPIL become the first pharma company in the country to have the capability to take up genome research on its own. They are of the opinion that the institution has been successful in generating and handing over the knowledge in genomics applications to the company. "Our job is to generate and sell knowledge and we are hoping to have progressed much on that front", they said.

Genomed is known to be the first research partnership in the field of genomics between a government laboratory and a private company in India. GenoMed have two research centres, one in New Delhi and the other in Mumbai.