Growing expenditure on R&D, slowing pace of drug discovery, increasing need for in-licensing products and technologies have resulted in exponential growth in the start-ups, noted Prof. S. Narasimha Murthy, Associate Professor-Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery, University of Mississippi and founder-director, Institute for Drug Delivery and Biomedical Research (IDBR).

Innovation, out-licensing, scalability, translational potential of the product are the key factors that determine the success of startups, he added.

The enormous progress in drug discovery, biotechnology, bioinformatics made in the last few years has provided immense opportunities for development of novel drug delivery systems and constitutes a paradigm shift in pharmaceutical and biomedical research and development. Of late, special emphasis is on development of novel drug delivery system, Prof. Murthy who is in India now to organise the IDBR’s first annual symposium here at Bengaluru told Pharmabiz.

The market size of novel drug delivery system has reached US$53 billion with an average annual growth rate of 16 per cent in the last five years. Development of novel drug delivery system is considered to be a more practical approach than discovery of new chemical entities considering the risk and timelines involved, he said.

The development of innovative drug delivery systems particularly those utilizing nanotechnology is limited by theory, technology, manufacturing process and technology. Considering these translational challenges, fewer novel drug delivery systems and new strategies have rolled out to the market, stated Prof. Murthy.

Although innovations in drug delivery and biomedical research are still in an early stage in India with lack of technology know-how, leading now many medical devices are manufactured indigenously, we still see India on par with the western world when it comes to research in this field. There is certainly scope for improvement. Recent Union government has unveiled initiatives to promote the research and innovation in  drug delivery and biomedical sciences. IDBR has been quite successful in making use of the initiatives by materializing some of the prestigious research grants instituted by government of India, he said.

With a paucity of scientists and lack of inclination to enter research, Prof. Murthy is of the view that a fresh graduate or a post graduate will need to undergo training for a period of not less than six months before he would be able to independently pursue research in the area. Specifically in Karnataka, which has conducive research environment along with students graduating in higher education in the field of pharmaceutical sciences, medicine  and engineering, we do not anticipate any dearth of talent here, pointed out Prof. Murthy.