|
AstraZeneca
may bring in more R&D projects to India
Ananth
Iyer - Mumbai
 AstraZeneca
is exploring the possibility of bringing in new R&D projects
to India, a reliable industry source told Express Pharma Pulse.
The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical group is planning to broaden the
scope of AstraZeneca Research Foundation India to include chemistry-based
drug discovery projects in the area of pain management, the source
revealed.
AstraZeneca
Research Foundation India - a non-profit centre based in Bangalore
- focuses on discovery of novel therapeutics for infectious diseases
of developing world, particularly tuberculosis.
Indications
are that AstraZeneca may transfer a part of its pain management
projects carried out by the chemistry department at its R&D
centre in Montreal to the R&D unit in India.
AstraZeneca’s
Montreal unit is working towards discovering new drugs against chronic
and neuropathic pain as there is a high medical need for safe and
effective analgesics. The focus is on a family of receptors called
“G protein - coupled receptors” (or GPCRs), as they represent
the most important class of receptors and most of them are localized
in areas of importance for pain processing.
The
Montreal unit comprises three main scientific departments (molecular
biology, chemistry and pharmacology) working together to discover
novel drug targets (new GPCRs) and identify new chemical entities
acting at these novel targets. In the long run, the company might
find it useful to shift chemistry-based projects in areas such as
oncology, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, respiratory and central
nervous system, the source added.
India’s
proven skills in chemical synthesis has attracted a lot of multinationals.
Back in 1998, Merck KcGA set up its 100 per cent subsidiary Merck
Development Centre India Ltd to formulate new chemical entities
originating from the parent’s pipeline. A number of multinationals
have outsourced projects to reputed CSIR research institutions such
as NCL Pune and IISc Bangalore.
Historically
the analgesia market has been poorly served due to a number of factors
that include misconceptions about adequate therapies, poor understanding
of pain mechanisms and methods for analgesic development as well
as a lack of initiative and investment from industry. All these
factors have been challenged in recent years and today several major
companies are active in analgesia development. Innovative therapies
(Sumatriptan, COX-2 inhibitors) or off-label use of drugs (e.g.
gabapentin) for analgesia have illustrated the potential for phenomenal
growth in the analgesia market with potential global sales estimated
to rise from 10-15 Billion USD today to 25-30 Billion USD by 2008.
According
to IMS Health, non-steroidal antirheumatics, for example, is the
fifth-largest therapy class totalling $9.5 billion in sales, or
3 percent of all audited global pharmaceutical sales. North America
with 53.3 percent of worldwide sales is the largest market, followed
by Europe at 19.6 percent, the Africa/Asia/Australia region at 16.4
percent, and Latin America at 10.8 percent. Pharmacia’s Celebrex
and Merck & Co’s Vioxx, the two leading COX-2 inhibitors,
have had phenomenal sales success. Celebrex secured the lead product
position after just 11 months on the market. By the end of 2000,
it had captured 25 percent of the world market, with sales growth
of 65 percent. Vioxx was the second best-selling antirheumatic non-steroidal
product in 2000, taking 19.1 percent of the worldwide market with
sales growth of 363 percent.
Greater
understanding of pain mechanisms has highlighted molecular plasticity
in the Peripheral Nervous System and Central Nervous System. The
identification of many families of novel molecular targets has further
opened opportunities for innovative analgesic drug discovery. These
advances have been supplemented by great improvements in laboratory
and in clinical pain modelling. In particular there has been an
enthusiastic buy-in from pain clinicians and scientists for describing
clinical pain in mechanistic terms. These mechanisms are beginning
to be understood in terms of the molecular targets involved, providing
a strong background for a variety of rational drug discovery programs.
|
