The Hindu : Business : Kalam asks drug firms to develop molecules

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 19, 2004

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Business

Kalam asks drug firms to develop molecules

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, NOV. 18. The President, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, has asked Indian companies engaged in pharmaceutical research not to sell a molecule abroad but develop it to drug and not to lose an excellent opportunity offered by the nanotechnology knocking at their doors the way they missed the great opportunity in partnering the human genome project.

Dr. Kalam, a doyen of Indian science and technology, told researchers that many R&D organisations and pharma industries discovered molecules but they sold most of them to multinationals for further development of drug and lost the benefit of value addition to foreign firms.

He asked them to take the challenge of further research. The President was addressing a gathering after inaugurating Nicholas Piramal Research Centre here today. He spent good time seeing the state of the art laboratory and remarked that if he were to decide about his career again he would not choose aviation and aeronautic engineering but bioscience and biotechnology. But the presidential compliment was accompanied by a good measure of advice emanating from his confidence that the Indian researchers could do it. He said the convergence of biotechnology and information technology, the bio-informatics and the science of proteomics that has emerged had revolutionised the drug design.

These coupled with nanotechnology had opened great opportunities. "Now with the emergence of nanotechnology, we have an excellent opportunity to be a global leader in the development of drug delivery systems and medical diagnostics and nano-bio medical sensors would play a major role in glucose detection and endoscopic implants,'' Dr. Kalam said.

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