European fund to boost Indian drug research

Indian pharmaceutical companies and institutes engaged in cutting edge science stands to benefit from the $7.65-billion European Commission Fund for boosting research in HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

Under the aegis of an Indo-EU joint working group, the seven-year research programme will commence from January 1, 2007. The group is currently inviting applications from companies and research institutes.

A key condition for getting grants from the fund will be having two collaborators each from India and the EU.

"This could be a big boon for research-centric biotechnology and pharma companies focused on these three areas. Research pipelines in the west have been churning out fewer new chemical entities for some time. Meanwhile, Indian companies have woken up to the necessity of research," said an expert.

The latest study by KPMG on the Indian drug industry underlines the need for sprucing up research funding as the industry's research spend stood at a mere two per cent of sales.

The global average is 10-20 per cent. Though in the last fiscal year the five leading Indian companies increased their research spend 47 per cent to $192.3 million overall, it was still less than 3 per cent of the spend of Pfizer, the world's leading innovator drug-maker.

Moreover, the three areas of HIV AIDS, TB and malaria are neglected areas though India has a large population base and pharma research companies in the west have largely left this area untouched, leaving the field open for cost-effective Indian drug makers, he added.

"The government will act as a facilitator in bringing Indian companies on board and help them in finding collaborators in the EU. Public research institutes like the National Institute Pharmaceutical Education and Research could also be one of the Indian partners," said G S Sandhu, joint secretary, department of chemicals and petrochemicals.

"Framework Programme-6", which preceded the latest plan and ran from 2003 to 2006, had a corpus of $3.19 billion and approved four projects. AIIMS for a project on neonatal surgeries, Bangalore-based Astrazeneca for TB and two malaria ventures by the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotech were the beneficiaries.

Two projects, one each on diabetes and TB, are still under negotiations. However, the extent of benefit that would accrue to Indian companies would depend on the success of these research projects and how the intellectual property rights were shared between the collaborators, stated an analyst.

An inter-ministerial meeting will be held on September 19 where officials from the health and family welfare ministry, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the departments of chemicals and petrochemicals and science and technology, and industry associations would discuss Framework Programme-7 of the working group.