PHARMA LITERATI

Pharmaceutical firms are increasingly turning their marketing force into teams of specialists, because a generalist medical representative may find it tough to explain to a doctor the complex and high-margin drugs they are pushing. Pfizer, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Abbott, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Cipla, Lupin, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Mankind Pharma, Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Ipca Laboratories and Hetero Drugs are all hiring management and pharmacy graduates as marketing executives and are paying hefty salaries , say industry executives and analysts. The top 20 companies control at least 40% of the total market and they are in the forefront to recruit specialists. Lupin is one of the pioneers in hiring management graduates and domain experts for sales. More than 80% of its sales force of 4,700 are specialists. While large pharma companies have hired thousands of management graduates, who account for more than half their sales force, specialist salesmen f...

NIPER announces the Joint Entrance Examination for Masters' and Ph.D. Program for 2015. The examination is meant for the admissions for following NIPER institutes. Ahmedabad Guwahati Hajipur Hyderabad Kolkata Raibareli S. A. S. Nagar (Mohali)  

Dear All, Every week of thousands of patent applications are published in India. The patent applications filed by the pharma academic research institutes in India go un-noticed.   We publish a list of Indian applications published related to pharma academics. This would provide us an idea about the kind of academic research being carried out in these institutes.   For details of these patents, please write back to us at pharmaliterati@gmail.com   Indian patent applications published on 27th March 2015     Invention Application No Inventors Institute An anti-leukemic agent useful for inducing differentiation in myeloid leukemia cells 2807/DEL/2013 A 1) Pal Pooja 2) Lochab Savita 3) Kanuajiya Jitendra Kumar 4) Trivedi Arun Kumar Council of Scientific & Industrial Research

All Indian Management Association announced the notification for "Management Aptitude Test - 2015".   Management Aptitude Test (MAT) is a standardised test being administered since 1988 to facilitate Business Schools (B-Schools) to screen candidates for admission to MBA and allied programmes.   Last Date For sale of forms :    18 April 2015 (Saturday).   Eligibility:                                      Graduates in any discipline/                                                     Final year students of Gra...

The Goa state branch of the Indian pharmaceutical association (IPA), under the leadership of its president Salim A Veljee, has been awarded the 'Best state branch award 2014' by the Indian pharmaceutical association, central office, Mumbai. In a communication received by the Goa state branch office, dated March 17, 2015, the IPA congratulated the president and members of the Goa state branch for their "excellent performance of the branch activities and the contributions in supporting the objectives of the association conducted in the larger interest of the pharmaceutical field, and in also maintaining high standards in its activities to the profession of pharmacy." Veljee thanked the association vice-president Anant Naik for his immense contributions in getting the award. The award will be presented to Veljee and G K Rao, the secretary of the association at the Goa branch and also the principal, Goa college of pharmacy, at the Indian pharmaceutical association an...

Dr Subroto Ghoshal, Manager- Human Resources, Mindteck India elaborates on the need to improve connectivity between IT and pharma industry for providing better diagnosis and cost effective treatment to patients in the Financial Express article, which can be accessed here: http://www.financialexpress.com/article/pharma/management-pharma/impact-of-it-on-indian-pharma-industry/56552/ The article discusses Indian Pharmaceutical Industry's state as on today and the impact of Information technology on the same. The article discusses: - Role of IT in pharma industry with some examples like computerised physician order entry (CPOE),  enterprise resource planning (ERP), laboratory information management system (LIMS), customer relationship management (CRM), clinical trial management system (CTMS), sales force automation (SFA), electronic batch records (eBR)   - Medical information in pharma industry and the relevance with reference to IT. - Te...

Dear All, Every week of thousands of patent applications are published in India. The patent applications filed by the pharma academic research institutes in India go un-noticed.   We publish a list of Indian applications published related to pharma academics. This would provide us an idea about the kind of academic research being carried out in these institutes.   For details of these patents, please write back to us at pharmaliterati@gmail.com   Indian patent applications published on 20th March 2015     Invention Application No Inventors Institute A medicinal composition with high chebulinic acid content for cancer treatment 1121/CHE/2015 A 1) Dr. Meena Vangalapati 2) D.V. Surya Prakash Associate Professor, Center for Biotechnology, Department of Chemical Engineering, A...

Dear All,           NIPER - Mohali, India's premier pharmacy education institute has announced summer training for 2015. Departments: 1. Medicinal Chemistry 2. Natural Products 3. Pharmaceutical Analysis 4. Pharmacology and Toxicology 5. Pharmaceutics 6. Biotechnology 7. Pharmacy Practice 8. Pharmaceutical Technology 9. Pharmacoinformatics 10. Pharmaceutical Management   Proposed duration of training:                               06 weeks (June 1 to July 15, 2015). Number of students to be admitted/year:             30 (3 students in each department). Fees of summer training:                     ...

AICTE, DST and CII are jointly organizing India Innovation Initiative 2015 to promote entrepreneurship in the country by sensitizing, encouraging and facilitating innovators for commercialization of their innovations.   Topics among Life Sciences include, Bio-Informatics Bio-Pharma Bio-Tech    SN Activities Timelines 01 Start Date for Registration Open 02 Last Date of Receiving Entries for India Innovation Initiative 30th April, 2015 03 Announcement of Short-listed Names August, 2015 04 i3 National Fair     Knowledgexpo 2015 October, 2015   AWARDS i3 Award 1. i3 will recognize top 5 innovators and confer them prize money and certificate. 2. Young Indians (Yi) to recognize top 3 young innovators and confer them prize money and certificate Incubation and Funding su...

Institute: Shobhaben Pratapbhai Patel School of Pharmacy & Technology Management, Mumbai.   Program & Specialization : Ph.D. in Pharm. Sciences. (Full time) Pharmaceutics, Pharmacology, Quality Assurance, Pharmaceutical Chemistry / Phyto Chemistry.   Last date of online application: 27th June 2015.    Details: http://downloads.nmims.edu/sptm/instruction-sheet-phd-2015.pdf   http://pharmacy.nmims.edu/mumbai-campus/programs/phd-pharmaceutical-sciences/admissions/  

There is growing evidence that a popular statin carries a particularly high risk of harmful side-effects, a doctor and campaigner has warned. The cholesterol-lowering power of rosuvastatin (Crestor) exceeds all other statins but is also associated with the highest increased risk of diabetes, Dr Sidney Wolfe said. Writing in the BMJ, the founder and senior adviser to US civil rights group Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said its approval to prevent heart attacks in a very select group of people was based on the results of a study which was stopped early, leading to concern that the treatment effects may have been overestimated. The drug, which was the most prescribed brand name drug in the US last year, is also a commonly-used statin in the UK. Dr Wolfe said other serious side effects include rhabdomyolysis - a rare condition that causes muscle cells to break down - and renal problems. Public Citizen asked the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban the dru...

Pharmabiz posts that t he National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has launched ‘Pharma Jan Samadhan’ scheme for redressal of consumers’ grievances relating to pricing and availability of medicines . The ‘Pharma Jan Samadhan’ scheme is a web enabled system for redressal of consumers’ grievances. It has put in place a speedy and effective complaint redressal system with respect to availability and pricing of medicines. It would serve as a robust e-governance tool for protection of consumers’ interests through effective implementation of the Drugs (Price Control) Order 2013. ‘Pharma Jan Samadhan’ will provide consumers and others with an on-line facility to redress their complaints relating to over-pricing of medicines, non-availability or shortage of medicines, sale of new medicines without prior price approval of NPPA, and refusal of supply for sale of any medicine without good and sufficient reason. NPPA will initiate action on any complaint within 48 hours of...

The government may establish a separate Ministry for the pharmaceuticals sector, which would comprise all departments that deal with issues related to the industry. "For the benefit of end user, the customer and considering the size of industry... There should be a separate Pharma Ministry. Therefore, I, along with Minister of State Hansraj Ahir, will approach Prime Minister and request him to look into this matter," Fertiliser Minister Ananth Kumar said recently. At present, Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and Drug Controller General of India (DGCI), which deal in regulatory control over the import of drugs, approval of new drugs and clinical trials, are governed by Health Ministry. Whereas, National Pharma Pricing Authority (NPPA), which sets the price limit on essential medicines, comes under Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers. The Minister said that the separate Ministry should work as both facilitator as well as regulator for the secto...

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Biopharmadive reports that Swiss Scientists may have uncovered next powerhouse antibiotic in horse dung.   Summary: ·       European biologists found a bacteria-killing compound in mushrooms that grows in horse dung—and it's a protein known as copsin.   ·       Copsin has the same effects on bacteria as traditional antibiotics. ·       The research team is led by Markus Aebi and is based at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich . The excitement that copsin has caused is based on many factors, including the fact that antibiotic-resistant infections are on the rise and becoming increasingly deadly. Scientists have been working with a great deal of determination to find treatments for diseases, such as tuberculosis.   Copsin is unique in that it is a protein and most antibiotics are non-protein organic compounds . Nonetheless, copsin has the sought-after q...

Martin J. Blaser, the director of the Human Microbiome Program at NYU takes on this question in his book "Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling our Modern Plagues" . Q: What made you initially wonder if H. pylori were not always harmful, or that it might be beneficial? When did you suspect it might be a case of amphibiosis? Ans: The more that I thought that Hp was really ancient, I asked whether an organism that has been around for such a long time might also have benefit to us. As we started studying diseases of the esophagus we found evidence supporting a protective role for Hp, thus it could be beneficial as well as harmful. The bottom line is that Hp may be costly to us in terms of stomach diseases but it is beneficial in terms esophageal diseases. Q: The relationship between a stomach microbe and GI issues like heartburn and ulcers seems logical, but you found some extraordinary correlations between H. pylori and protection against other...