To support the medical needs of the poorest sections of the society, India has to develop more patterns of generic drugs. In the present day world, the generic versions manufactured in India do not meet all the needs of patients suffering from communicable and non-communicable diseases, according to Dr S P Thiyagarajan, Dean Research, Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai.

He was speaking at a discussion on ‘Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery & Development in India’ organised by the university at its campus. The discussion was addressed by 15 experts from India and United States, and attended by 150 delegates. The focus of the discussion was  drug discovery, clinical trials, drug launch and post marketing surveillance.

He said that despite a vibrant generic pharma industry in India, developing a new drug from an original idea is rare as launching a finished product is a complex process which takes 10-15 years and costs over one billion US dollars. So, India should initiate more drug discovery programmes to cater to the needs of the vast population of the country.

Experts participated in the discussion have suggested for generating new ideas to buttress the drug research and development in India. Scientists belong to medicinal chemistry, drug discovery and development have recommended forming a Consortium of industries from US and India in association with Sri Ramachandra University to set up a ‘Finishing School’ for providing practice/research project based diploma or integrated PG programmes for the purpose of industry manpower with management and communication skills.

They also recommended that funding agencies like DST, DBT and CSIR should support academia-industry collaborations in summer-internship programmes, joint finishing school programmes for academics, R&D contract projects to academia, setting up of industry-innovation centres in academic institutions besides major joint drug discovery and validation programmes.