Registration of delegates for participation to the 64th IPC has crossed 6000 mark and many more are waiting for enlisting with the delegates’ roll, said J Jayaseelan, resident secretary of the Organizing Committee here in Chennai.

The student registration has gone upto 5000, and thousand plus enrollment have come from teachers and industry representatives. The period of registration has been extended up to the end of this month, said he by adding that students and teachers from Tamil Nadu will join only in the eleventh hour.

He said the news item appeared in Pharmabiz in last week highlighting the poor status of registration of delegates has in fact prompted the college students and pharmacy teachers to get enrolled at the earliest. He said the committee is expecting a total of six thousand students and researchers, and one thousand teachers for this year’s conference. Besides the VIP list will go beyond one thousand, he said.

Meanwhile, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, former president of India has consented to attend the Congress on December 6 evening. According to sources, Kalam launched the ‘Pharma Vision 2020’ programme in 2003 at the IPA Convention in Chennai when he was the president of the country. Jayaseelan said Kalam’s visions about the pharmaceutical sector and the projects he put forward had influenced the industry people in Tamil Nadu.

To attract people from industry to the pre-conference programme taking on December 5, special package has been made for bulk registrations.

National level essay competition will be arranged for women pharmacy professionals including students of pharmacies, teachers, pharmacists and those working in regulatory bodies, Jayaseelan told Pharmabiz in an interview.