The corpus proposed for Rs.150 crore National Pharmaceutical Research and Development Fund, announced by the Centre in 2000 has come into existence last week and the disbursal of the fund would start shortly, informed Dr VS Ramamurthy, secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST). Dr Murthy, who was in Chennai to deliver 'Dr Murali Manohar Joshi 70th Birthday Commemoration Endowment Lecture' organized by Arulmigu Kalasalingam College of Engineering, said that the government is also planning to increase the corpus fund soon.

"Since the new patent regime comes into existence within a year, many Indian drug firms are in the process of developing several molecules to stay in the global competition. Hence, the government has felt the need to increase the amount as much as possible to match the demand," he said.

The details of fund utilization and other modalities were also being worked out, he added. "It is to be noted the finance wing of the Cabinet sub-committee of central government had cleared to form the National Pharmaceutical Research and Development Fund, last week. The first phase of the fund is to the tune of Rs.150 crore. The fund envisages offering loans to conduct research and development of drugs, with the interest of the corpus Rs.150 crore. In order to handle the fund and to boost drug research, the government has also formed a Drug Development Promotion Board under the DST," he informed.

In his speech, Dr Ramamurthy noted the Indian scientists were able to develop a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), which documented authentic information on drugs from existing literature in Indian medical systems, in seven languages. With this, patent offices from various parts of the world could search the database and then decide whether to give patent for claims on innovation based on Indian traditional systems of medicine.

Earlier, patent offices lacked such comprehensive data, and resultantly, patents were given to many firms outside India for traditional cures and healing methods of Indian origin. The project is a collaborative venture of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Department of Commerce and Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy.

He also said a national task force was being constituted to implement the National Science and Technology (S&T) policy, with thrust on segments like healthcare, agriculture, education and employment generation.