One strong indication that all is not well with India Pharma Inc is the continued run of GMP violations (the latest being the surprise inspections at Sun Pharma’s Halol facility, with reports saying that the presence of as many as five inspectors could indicate a serious slip up). The second is the dying of the ‘Discover in India’ dream. Piramal Enterprises’ announcement in end August, that it was re-aligning its R&D to focus on late rather than early stage research could see more of its peers pruning their R&D programmes as well.
Ironically, global agencies are pumping millions into efforts to speed up research and trials on anti-Ebola virus treatments. As the death count mounts, there is a sense of deja vu: we saw the same panic during zoonotic pandemics in the recent past. Sadly, the clamour for a cure fades as the infection subsides, research funds dry up and such projects end up on the back burner. Until the next public health emergency.
In hindsight, epidemiologists have pointed out how the current outbreak of Ebola virus disease did not happen overnight. It is now over eight months from the death of the first known patient: a two-year old child in Gueckedou district, located in the Guinea forest regions, in December last year. The infection grew stronger over the following months but it was only when two infected US health workers were airlifted in early August that Ebola finally got global attention. Hindsight is always 20/20 but maybe the spread could have been contained if these agencies had tracked the infection more closely.
Hopefully, the NaMo government will take a cue from this situation. Modi’s mantra of ‘Make in India’ and his vision of India transforming into a manufacturing powerhouse, has already happened in the pharma industry. Instead of ‘Make in India’, we need to make ‘Discover in India’ our calling card. We need to re-define our positioning as an innovative, affordable research crucible for diseases which impact our populations, for instance, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). In fact, with NTDs now surfacing in Western nations (for example Texas, by recent estimates, has more than 800,000 people infected with Chagas disease), there is increased funding for such projects. But challenges continue: read our cover story of this issue (‘Trapping the Ebola virus’, pages 28-32) as well as other stories in the section which point to low investor sentiment and regulatory hurdles faced by biopharma players (‘In choppy waters’, pages 33-34).
Fortunately, promising research projects have managed to attract good funding. In November last year, a project from Mumbai’s Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Matunga, was chosen from over 2700 applicants for a $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to develop what could become the first ever ‘green’ nanovaccine for nasal immunisation against brucellosis. Like the Ebola virus, this is another zoonotic disease, under control in developed countries but still common in countries with sketchy public health and domestic animal health programmes. Of course, the research at ICT is a long way from fruition but we need to celebrate such sparks (I am sure there are many more such examples across our country) and hopefully fan them on to blazing success. We hope this gets onto the NaMo government’s agenda for the rest of its term.
Viveka Roychowdhury
Editor