|
Events
Strategies for better drug discovery
Katya Naidu - Mumbai
All about drug discovery under one roof is the best line to describe the -three-day
event on Asia Drug Discovery and Development. Organised by Marcus Evans at Hotel
Taj Lands End in Mumbai, from 20 to 22 March, it was the meeting point of dignitaries
from the various fields of research, finance and technology. But the aim was
the same—to improve drug discovery.
Anthony Bishop, the Associate Director Business Development of Quintiles Asia
talked about 'Working in Asia for the first time'. Asia is the preferred choice
for clinical trial outsourcing, as it is a diverse region with a full spectrum
of diseases. However, the issue is choosing the right sites to access patients.
He also stressed on the importance of local staff in foreign companies as they
don't have cultural and language barriers. But the key is to ensure that they
understand global ICH GCP and can implement it in their local environment.
Mark Schreiber, the Head of Bioinformatics of Novartis Institute for Tropical
Diseases, gave a lecture on the utility of utilising bioinformatics to support
R&D. During the late 90's, several technologies developed that allowed mass
production of biological data. Some of the technologies are capillary sequencing
(genomes), microarrays (transcriptomes), 2D gels and MALDI-TOF mass specs (Proteomes),
2 Hybrid systems (Iteractomes), HTP HPLC (Metabolomes), and HTS and tissue screening.Bioinformatics
and systems biology have evolved to make use of the data.
He also presented a case study on data integration for TB drug target identification.
Strategies to reduce the number of unnecessary clinical trials, leveraging innovation
capabilities towards establishing long-term relationships, financing pharmaceutical
R&D in the future and benefiting from shared knowledge in R&D were some
of the topics discussed.
Ranjit Shahani, the President of Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of
India (OPPI) and Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Novartis India, reviewed
the future growth challenges in the Indian drug discovery and development market.
|
