Fw: [AR-News] Production of new drugs getting delayed

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Friday, September 24, 2004 5:11 PM

[AR-News] Production of new drugs getting delayed

 

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/863001.cms

 

Production of new drugs getting delayed

KALPANA JAIN

 

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2004 11:48:59 PM ]

 

 

NEW DELHI: At a meeting held in the premises of an Indian

pharmaceutical giant, animal rights activists objected to the use of 15 rabbits

for testing a new drug. When scientists raised concerns about safety, the

activists suggested that instead of rabbits, the drug could be released for

limited use by some humans.

 

 

Without further arguments, the company sent the drug for testing to

a neighbouring country.

 

The CPCSEA (Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of

Experiments on Animals), constituted by animal rights' activist and former Union

minister Maneka Gandhi, is making it virtually impossible for medical scientists

to use large animals for experiments.

 

Continued

As a result, testing of new drugs is being delayed, pharma

companies forced to spend several times more on testing abroad are planning to

recover the costs from consumers and scientists are unable to fathom mysterious

outbreaks as they can no longer experiment with monkeys, which have the closest

resemblance to humans.

 

 

At the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, scientists

could not conduct any test on monkeys to get quick results as they struggled to

contain a mysterious outbreak in Andhra Pradesh which went on to claim the lives

of some 200 children last year. " The scientists did whatever they could in the

laboratory. But tests on monkeys would have given some immediate results, " says

a senior Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) official. The same story was

repeated during another epidemic of brain fever in Assam.

 

ICMR has, in fact, spent Rs 2.5 crore in renovating its

facility at the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad. However,

scientists say, it has not improved things. ICMR has refused to attend any

meetings until large animal facilities were cleared by the committee.

 

ICMR's Food and Drug Toxicology Centre, which tests new drugs

regularly for pharmaceutical companies, is unable to do as it requires working

on large animals. As a result, says ICMR, new drugs are getting delayed. In

fact, at all medical research institutions such as NIN, NIV, PGI, Chandigarh,

National Institute of Immunology, Delhi, and the All India Institute of Medical

Sciences, most scientific work which requires large animals has come to a

standstill.

 

 

Scientists say they have kno-cked at the doors of powers that

be. " We are not meant for all this. We feel helpless and it is so stressful. We

can't work at the end of it, " says a senior faculty member of AIIMS, who lost

projects to international competitors, awaiting clearances.