The approval given by the ministry of environment & forests (MoE&F) for the large animal house facility set up by the Frontier Mediville, a medical science park developed in a SEZ area near Chennai by Frontier Lifeline Hospitals & Dr K M Cherian Heart Foundation, has attracted the clinical research organisations (CROs) and pharma manufacturing industry in Tamil Nadu.

The Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments of Animals (CPCSEA) under the Animal Welfare Division of the ministry has approved the animal house facility in its 47th meeting held on 20th May this year. Now the hospital can house dog, sheep and pig for research work. It is also approved for the research and breeding of mice, rat, hamster, guinea pigs and rabbits, says the certification.

Hailing the government approval for the clinical research in Tamil Nadu, T S Jayashankar, managing director of Quest Life Sciences, a contract clinical research organisation in Chennai, said the animal house would provide facilities for animal studies for drug development and help a lot for the pharma industry in the state. He said he was amazed to see the facility at the centre.

Dr. Ananda Padmanabhan, managing director of Consortium Clinical Research Private Ltd at Coimbatore, has commented that the Mediville animal house might facilitate the drug development companies all over India for conducting animal studies in Tamil Nadu.

“In drug discovery process, after the lab based research the investigational new drug (IND) will get permission from ICMR to conduct animal study. Only after scrutiny of the animal study reports, the drug will be approved for clinical research. At present, the number of authentic animal houses in the country is very few.  Most importantly, there are many academic researches in life science need animal study reports”, said Dr Ananda Padmanabhan.

Knowing the award of CPCSEA certification, Dr P V Appaji, director general of Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) commented that availability of environment ministry certified small and large animal facility centres would help the Indian pharma sector in export growth also. He said with increasing global R&D spends, Indian pharmaceutical sector has become a cost-effective area of choice for world class clinical research as also for contract research & development.

Expressing happiness over the approval, Dr K M Cheriyan, chairman and managing director of Frontier Lifeline Hospitals, said Mediville is the first private hospital in the country to have own animal facility. He said with this approval, his hospital will be able to take up plenty of research work not only in India but in other countries as well.