The Steering Committee of the Planning Commission on Drugs has recommended Rs.100 crore during the current Five Year Plan period to support academia, research institutions and private sector companies to carry out extra mural research.

“The academia, various R&D institutions in the government as in Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the private sector companies are doing research in drug related areas. While the government funded research whether by CSIR, Central Labs (CDRI, etc.), Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) with a total of some 51 research institutions are doing research in a non-applied manner with clear lack of targeted drug development as in stages of NCE development, preclinical studies, etc., the private sector is mostly limited to formulation and drug delivery systems development,” the report of the committee said.

“Only a few companies are concentrating new drug development and a number of companies like Glenmark, Suven, etc. had to out-licence their initial developments to other companies for further development thus not being able to take full advantage of the full drug development cycle. It is accordingly proposed to launch a scheme for funding both academia individually, as an institution and private companies for targeted drug development including assistance for clinical trials,” the report said.

The panel also suggested that the details of the scheme could be worked out after thorough study as to the outputs from the existing funding in this sector by various government bodies and organizations / schemes and to fill the gap as may be required.

The individual projects could be implemented by NIPERs in collaborative partnership or under their aegis and guidance, the panel noted, while recommending a total of Rs.100 crore for scheme under the 12th Plan period.