The Department of Health Research (DHR) is planning to set up a National Centre for Clinical Pharmacology to give a fillip to the current activities taken by the pharmaceutical industry in the field of research and innovation.

The proposal has been included as one of the new institutes to be set up under the ongoing Five Year Plan period and the final approval is awaited. The place and other details of the institute will be decided after the in-principle approval, sources said.

“Clinical Pharmacology needs a major thrust in the current scenario as Indian Pharmaceutical Industry is changing from being traders to innovators. Government institutions have also developed technologies, but many are not translated into products. On the other hand rural as well as far flung areas with paucity of healthcare delivery and infrastructure need innovative drugs with stability, safety and ease of administration. Standard treatment guidelines with supporting data from outcome research, pharmacovigilance and rational use of drugs are required to avoid side effects and microbial resistance to drugs. To improve health indices, cater to the projected growth of industry, the discipline needs to grow exponentially,” according to the project note prepared in this connection.

“Centre for Clinical Pharmacology, with high impact research for development of specialized products for rural and remote areas, national data bases, outcome research, pharmacovigilance, pharmacogenetic and evaluation of Alternative Systems of Medicine (ASM) is proposed to cater all these emerging issues. The centre will be interdisciplinary, public health oriented with country wide coverage, with a vision for expertise, information, knowledge, services, training with safe and economic products for rural and remote areas to improve health indices, linking with other Union Government departments,” it said.

The main objective of the centre will be to assess need, translate new and existing technologies from bench to public health, evaluate products, packing, and package inserts for children, women, old age, specially for emergencies, life threatening situations for remote and rural areas.

The centre will also provide the information on deficiencies of available drugs, devices and vaccines, and will also help in capacity building for globally competitive, interdisciplinary teams, skilled researchers for new drug development, optimizing old drug, infection control and antibiotic use, drugs and therapeutics committees, regulatory reviews, research in colleges and institutes.

This will act as a core national centre in this specific area and also co-ordinate with other adhoc projects and Centre(s) for Advance Research in the country to galvanize science in this area.