The Department of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy of the Tamilnadu Government has plans to forge alliances with the universities having advanced research capabilities in the state to undertake research and standardization of drugs in the ISM sector, especially for Siddha medicines.

The proposed Memorandum of Understandings with the academic institutions will cover aspects like documentation of ISM drugs, documenting ancient Siddha books possibly in English and Hindi, digitalization of ancient palm leaves and manuscripts on ancient medicines, teaching programmes on herbal sciences, in service training for academic and research personnel etc.

Further, collaborations in research and development will also focus on validating claims of Siddha medicines in the areas of jaundice, AIDS, arthritis, diabetes etc. adopting internationally accepted scientific technologies. The department will also enter into any other programmes in relation to other relevant areas of collaboration, which the parties feel appropriate under the agreement.

The move is basically because of lack of adequate government facilities for R&D work in ISM drugs in the state and as part of the strategy to restore the credibility and legitimacy of ISM systems by emphasizing on research, education and product standardization and increasing the outreach of these systems, informed official sources.

It may be noted that the ISM department of the Tamilnadu Government has already entered into a MoU with the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) for a five-year project to standardize Siddha formulations. The department and its arm, the Tamil Nadu Medicinal Plant Farms & Herbal Medicines Corporation (TAMPCOL), is jointly working with the CSIR to establish the scientific validity of select herbal formulations and single molecules related to Siddha medicine. The project also aims to evolve new range of herbal formulations and single molecule remedies for the treatment of specific diseases of international interest and to develop rationalization process tools for disease-specific and need-based products.

Similarly, the ISM directorate had signed a MoU last year with the Madras University to undertake a project of standardization and scientific validation of 15 proprietary Siddha medicines. By this, the university is undertaking toxicological, efficacy and scientific validation studies of the identified popularly used traditional drugs of the Siddha system of medicine, through tissue culture and other experiments. The university is also developing protocols and product standardization yardsticks or markers for scientific validation and efficacy studies.