PHARMA LITERATI

"The ever-evolving Indian pharmaceutical industry is pitched to be a USD 50 billion business by 2020 jumping an overwhelming measure from its current turnover of 30 billion USD annually. With the increasing demand for Pharmacists, there are incredible opportunities for Pharmacy graduates in India", said Dr. Aslam Khan, Director - Arrhythmia Centre and Consulting Physician - Apollo Hospitals . Addressing the delegates and students at the International Seminar organized by the Sultan ul Uloom College of Pharmacy in collaboration with the Association of Community Pharmacists of India , Dr. Aslam said with the current demand for Indian pharmaceutical products, opportunities for pharmacists are huge in varied sectors including government departments, teaching sector, investigation and research areas, formulation and production of drugs, etc. In his keynote address, Dr. M. Chandra Sekar - Professor at the University of Findlay, Ohio, USA, a recipient of nearly 15 awards ...

India's largest drugmaker Sun Pharma may file application for a new drug with the US Food and Drug Administration in next two to three years, the company's Managing Director Dilip Shanghvi said. The firm's research arm SPARC (Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company) is currently working on three new drugs that are currently under clinical trial stage, he added.   "A few years back, we decided to separate our innovative business in a company called SPARC. That company has now three products undergoing clinical trials.   "And hopefully in the next two to three years, we should have our own new product registered in the US," Shanghvi said in his address at Indian School of Business .   He, however, did not elaborate on the therapeutic areas on which those three chemical entities are under research.   The company has around 1,800 research scientists working in multiple R&D centres with expertise in developing generics, difficult to make tec...

At a time HIV was spreading like a wildfire across the world, India had a hundred thousand long-haul truck drivers, more than two million prostitutes, close to three thousand brothels, and tens of millions of seasonal workers who moved in and out of the cities. Hundreds of millions of people lived without running water, let alone the costly drugs necessary for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. One woman came out to fight against the growing epidemic, and she was none other than Dr. Suniti Solomon – the HIV/AIDS crusader. She was a professor of microbiology at the Madras Medical College when she and her colleagues documented the first evidence of the HIV infection in India in 1986 when blood samples of six commercial sex workers tested positive. The samples were first sent to Christian Medical College in Vellore and later to a facility in the USA, where the result was confirmed. The first finding of the deadly virus, in Tamil Nadu, was even read out in the state legislative assembly. I...

Purdue University is working toward a strategic partnership with a pharmaceutical company in India. The school and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd. have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at boosting research and development. The collaboration will focus on pharmaceutical process and product development research in fields such as targeted drug delivery, manufacturing technology, scale-up of pharmaceutical operations, process engineering, as well as research and development methodologies and technology. India has been a strategic focus for the university, which has nearly 1,500 students from the Asian nation. President Mitch Daniels is scheduled to visit India this fall.  The agreement is also designed to push forward the Purdue Moves drug discovery initiative, which involves translating "basic research into life-changing treatments." Purdue Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships Suresh Garimella says "Dr. Reddy's Laboratories is ...

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 24th July 2015 Invention Application No Inventors Institute Anti-tubercular drug Nano-conjugates 2689/CHE/2015 A 1) Dr. Sarvamangala Dhurjeti 2) Dr. Sathyanarayana Murthy Upadhyayula 3) Nagasejitha Pulakunta 4) Dr. L. Srinivas Not known (3-(2-chloroquinolin-3-yl) oxiran-2-yl)(phenyl) methanone derivatives and medicinal use thereof 2774/CHE/2015 A 1) Narasimha M...

The Pharmaceutical University which has been a long pending plan of the Delhi government is going to be functional from this academic session. The Act of Delhi Pharmaceutical Science and Research University (DPSRU) was passed by the Legislative Assembly of National Capital Territory of Delhi in September, 2008 but it could not be made functional, so far. “With the vision to promote excellence, research and development in pharmaceutical field the new Government of Delhi took initiative by making the University functional,” an official from the Delhi government said. The Board of Governors (BoG) of the University has been notified to take forward the academic functioning of the University from the Current Academic Session 2015-16. The University will run from the DIPSAR Campus at Pushp Vihar in Saket.  Presently, the existing institute DIPSAR is running Diploma, Bachelor Degree and Master Degree in Pharmacy. The University will introduce more courses in pharmac...

We recently announced the collaboration with FICCI's CCIPR course.  Please see: http://pharmaliterati.blogspot.in/2015/06/pharma-literati-collaborates-with-ficci.html The registrations for the course would be opening on 1st August 2015.  Visit: http://www.ficciipcourse.in/ for the course details.  Registration Start Date: 1st August 2015. Registration Closing Date: 25th August 2015. Conduct of the Course: September 2015- February 2016. Course Duration: 6 Months. Fees: 10,000 Rs for students and 15,000 Rs. for industry professionals.  The subscribers of Pharma Literati would be eligible for a special discount of 10 % for the course.  About the course: Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) provides the Online Certificate Course on IPR and Pharmaceutical R&D. This course is designed for pharmacy students and junior level scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. Unique ...

Pharma Literati is going global. When we started this initiative, the idea was to create a niche blog for the pharmacy students in India. Not yet fully accomplished the mission, however we have made a sort of head-start in the right direction. What is more surprising is the fact that there has been keen interest by some of the subscribers across the globe beyond India. Just providing the details of the page-views accessed by our subscribers across the globe as on 27th July 2015.  Happy reading. 

We have a brand new logo for Pharma Literati. It's been a long time we were working on this and finally it has materialized into a gem of a piece. Must thank the designer for the work.

Jayamukhi College of Pharmacy in association with Jayamukhi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences organizing the National Level Seminar on ‘Exploring  Innovative Practices in Pharmacy Education and Research’ on 13 th August 2015 at Narsampet, Warangal district, Telangana. A series of talk on  Pharmacovigilance,  Green Chemistry,  Clinical skills for a  Modern Pharmacists and  Patent Filing and Drafting  will be conducted as a part of the event.  A platform for the students to present posters (A3 size)  during the event, it encompasses presenting selected topics on Recent advances in therapeutics, Evidence based medicine, Recent regulatory changes in Pharma field , and a new generation of chemotherapeutic agents.   Inviting students, research scholars and faculty members  present their views and opinions on current updates in the pharmaceutical Sciences. 

Company Requirement Location Contact details Details TCS M. Pharm Freshers 2014 and 2015 passouts. Mumbai 11 am to 4 pm 23 rd July 2015 TCS, Godrej Complex, Vikhroli West Walk-in

The Indian Pharmaceutical Association would be celebrating the National Pharmacy Week every year during the third week of November. The major focus of NPW celebrations is to create awareness amongst the public, other healthcare providers and the authorities, about the NPW theme in specific and about the pharmacy profession and role of the pharmacist in general. The 54th National Pharmacy Week (NPW) will be celebrated from 15th to 21st November, 2015. The theme selected for this year is:  "Responsible Use of Antibiotics Saves Lives". We look forward to receiving your innovative ideas about how NPW should be celebrated this year as well as about the educational material to be developed to make it most effective and meaningful. Your active participation is most welcome. Please write your suggestions to ipacentre@ipapharma.org / ipacpd@gmail.com Keep checking www.ipapharma.org for more details. Source: http://www.ipapharma.org/html/npw_2015.htm...

What could be seen as a really positive step towards protection of animals, the University Grants Commission has directed all the universities under it to stop experimenting with animals as research in their laboratory. As a part of the initiative, the affiliated universities are supposed to register online with the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiment on Animals (CPCSEA), which is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment responsible for the prevention of cruelty to animals. By being a part of it, the universities will be agreeing to comply with the guidelines in their Life Sciences and Zoology courses. The UGC has instructed the universities to consider and comply to the matter on priority-basis. An 'action-report' is expected from them by July 30. As many as 1,544 universities have already registered with the Committee. A ban was also implemented on animal dissection in 2011 but had too many loopholes to gain any success...

This article by Patricia McGettigan, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology at Queen Mary University of London highlights the rampant practice of combination drugs in India. India has been called the pharmacy of the world . Many generic drugs are made there and much of its drug production is exported internationally. Thousands of fixed dose combination (FDC) drugs – where two or more drugs are combined in a set ratio in a single dose form, usually a tablet or capsule – are formulated, made and sold within India. Many FDCs are safe and effective. They are used in situations where both the drug combination and the doses needed are standardised and stable, for example, in the treatment of HIV, for Parkinson’s disease and in contraceptive pills. However, in a study investigating these drugs in India, we found thousands of FDCs on the market made up of formulations never approved for marketing by the national regulator, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, and t...

Lupin is on its way to making the highest R&D spend in the pharma industry Lupin is on its way to making the highest R&D spend in the pharma industry. Vice-chairman Kamal Sharma said it will be spending 10% of its turnover on R&D soon. “Our R&D spend is inching to 10%. We are now at 8.5%,” he said. Lupin’s R&D investments have been in the 7.5-8.75% of the turnover range for the last five years. In FY15, Lupin spent R1,119 crore on R&D expenses. Lupin’s R&D investment has doubled in the last five years, Sharma said. The average R&D spend for the industry is around 5-7%. Lupin has two R&D centres each in India and Japan. The Lupin Research Park in Pune has a talent pool of 1,400 scientists and is ramping up with fresh investments, Sharma said. He declined to share details of the expansion in the R&D budget, but said it will happen soon. The company has, till date, 210 ANDA filing, of which 111 have be approved and 12 were done in FY15. ...

Forbes India's latest issue has article highlighting the history of Ajanta Pharma, the growth and the current ecenario.  It took a second generation of Agrawals to change the future of Ajanta Pharma which, from being mired in debt, has seen a 65-fold growth in market value. To date, yesteryear bollywood superstar Jeetendra has appeared in only one television commercial to endorse a product. That was in the 1990s, for a popular over-the-counter (OTC) energiser capsule for men called ‘30-Plus’. Jeetendra was in his late 40s then, but looked much younger. Though 30-Plus sold like hot cakes, revenues from its sales didn’t justify the exorbitant marketing cost that its maker, a then little-known company called Ajanta Pharma, incurred. (It sold 30-Plus to Dabur for an undisclosed sum in 2011.) But even before it sold its bestseller, the Mumbai-based listed company—set up in 1973 by three brothers, Mannalal, Purushottam and Madhusudan Agrawal—had been incurring huge losses ...