The R&D institutions in India should take up intensive research to develop cost effective vaccines for malaria, HIV, TB and other water-borne diseases on a highest priority basis, according to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, President of India.

While delivering the first Dr. Ida S. Scudder Founder’s Day Oration at Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, the president said that research should be conducted by R&D institutions to develop cost effective treatment regime for such categories of diseases through gene therapy and gene chip research, stem cell research and combination vaccine and pathogen specific antibiotics.

Development and commercialisation of a new molecule requires about 7 to 10 years. Out of thousands of molecular drug leads, only 10 to 20 reach the commercialisation stage. If India could develop cost effective medicines, it could be a good wealth generator for the country, besides a boon to the public.

“Recently, I visited a number of public and private sector medical and pharmaceutical R&D centres. In every laboratory I was very happy to see a large number of scientists working in the frontier areas of pharma sector, particularly in the private sector, which provides them strengths to become globally competitive,” said Kalam.

The President stated that the concepts of mobile clinics and telemedicine are gaining much importance as they reach out to the rural population in remote areas, which are normally inaccessible, and where organised medical facility is not available. The clinical data provided by these facilities will be useful for the researchers in the medical colleges. Data from these mobile clinics should be integrated with the data from various hospitals and this could provide a definite direction for healthcare research.

“This, I consider as the best form of reaching healthcare to the most needy people in the country. This is a low cost solution driven by committed healthcare personnel and institutions. Combination of mobile clinic and tele-medicine facility can provide quality Medicare to people living in remote areas,” he added.

Kalam further noted that CSIR has developed a drug called Sudo-terb, which is a breakthrough in the fight against TB. It is hoped that the drug will be in the market soon after the clinical trials. Collaboration is necessary between healthcare personnel, doctors, researchers and the pharmaceutical companies both in the private and public sectors to accomplish the mission to fight against T.B and HIV/AIDS. He also suggested that the medical community must start working on the development of anti-vaccines for HIV sub-type A and B.

“Time has arrived to take up this development as a mission to make an effective vaccine available for our country within the next two years,” said Kalam.

The President laid the foundation stone of the Centre for Stem Cell Research in CMC, the first medical institution to establish a translational stem cell research centre in the country with the support of central government.