NEW DELHI: "It is essentially to complement the strengths that we have, particularly for carrying out phase three clinical trials. These necessarily have to be done in North America and Europe for approval in those markets," said Rashmi Barbhaiya, president of Ranbaxy Research Laboratories at a press conference here Tuesday. The move is part of the company's efforts to make strategic alliances for R&D to accelerate research into new drugs. Ranbaxy spends about five percent of its global revenues in R&D and is planning to gradually step up investment for research. It has already filed four investigational new drug applications with the Drugs Controller General of India. The company also has four molecules in early discovery stage. Ranbaxy is looking at a transition from a generic company to a specialty pharmaceutical company with the intent of transforming itself into a research-based organisation. Said Barbhaiya: "We are looking in a serious manner to set up an offshore facility." On its tie-up with the Geneva-based Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) for the development of a synthetic peroxide anti-malarial drug, Barbhaiya said, "The research is at a transition stage between discovery and development of drug. "All going well, if we pass the identification stage between the two discovered molecules, we hope to start the phase one trial of the new drug by the fourth quarter of next year," Launched on November 1999, MMV is a non-profit foundation dedicated to reducing malaria by discovering affordable anti-malarial drugs through effective public-private partnership. On May 16, Ranbaxy took over as MMV's pharma partner from leading healthcare company, Roche. As pharma partner to MMV, which is funded by several global bodies, Ranbaxy has undertaken to help in the pharmaceutical and clinical development of an affordable drug to fight a disease that annually claims one million lives globally. Ranbaxy is hopeful of coming up with a new anti-malarial drug in five to eight years. "The new molecules discovered are synthetic versions of Artemisinin, a Chinese herbal medicine for treatment of malaria. It is derived from naturally grown artemisia annua plants. Through structural modification we are seeking to increase the efficacy of the new drug to eliminate the side-effects," said Barbhaiya. MMV officials said that not much research is being conducted on the disease, primarily because largely poor people in developing countries fall victim to it.
Source: IANS