siliconindia | | January 20224Indian pharmaceutical companies' entry into the drug discovery and development field dates back to the early 1990s when India announced the signing of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement that introduced a product patent system from Jan. 1, 2005. Changes in the regulatory environment in the same year led to other developments with the emergence of the country as a fa-vourite destination for `chemistry' outsourcing followed by collabo-rative drug discovery as contract agencies where in-house strengths in chemistry of local companies was augmented with focus biology. Since the initiation of drug discovery by major companies in the 1990s, Indian pharmaceutical R&D efforts have resulted in over 200 preclinical- and clinical-stage development compounds, of which very few have reached the market. While this illustrates that new chemical entity (NCE) research has been taken up by Indian compa-nies over last three decades, there still are issues like skill gap, insuf-ficient understanding of tech transfer and IP protection, regulatory uncertainty regarding clinical trials, pricing uncertainties, and a lot remains to be done if we are to re-position India as a drug discovery powerhouse. The private sector has thus far allocated most of its in-vestment to `development' ­ better manufacturing technology, high-end plants, reverse engineering, etc. ­ rather than `research'. Despite thousands of crores spent on research and development, we still have not been able to come up with any significant new molecule. Most importantly, certain diseases (like malaria and tuberculosis) are unique to India and other low and middle-income countries. Since they do not draw the attention of global pharmaceutical companies, research for such diseases will have to be driven by Indian compa-nies.Taking the matters in their own hands, India's premiere and start-up pharma companies alike have stepped up clinical trials making sure innovation and research never meets a bottleneck. This edition is throwing the light on several such drug discovery & development companies who have transformed the industry and created a stir to bring India to terms with its potential. Emmanuel Christi DasEditoreditor@siliconindia.comIndia's Giant Leap in Drug DiscoveryEditorial Vol 11 · Issue 03 · January 2022 Publisher Alok Chaturvedi Editor Emmanuel Christi Das Editorial Team Aveek Pal Chaudhuri Hima P M Mandvi Singh GM - Sales & Marketing Rohit Kumar Advertising Managers Editorial queries editor@siliconindia.com To subscribe Visit https://www.siliconindia.com/subscribe/ or send email to subscription@siliconindia.com Cover price is Rs.150 per issue. Printed and Published By Alok Chaturvedi on behalf of SiliconMedia Technologies Pvt Ltd and Printed at Precision Fototype Services at Sri Sabari Shopping Complex, 24 Residency Road Bangalore-560025 and Published At No. 124, 2nd Floor, Surya Chambers, Old Airport Road, Murugeshpalya, Bangalore-560017. Editor Alok ChaturvediCopyright © 2022 SiliconMedia Technologies Pvt Ltd, All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of any text, photography or illustrations without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations. Views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the magazine and accordingly, no liability is assumed by the publisher.advertise@siliconindia.com Visualisers Suanya Chakraborty Group Art DirectorAshok KumarCirculation Manager Magendran Perumal Ashwini D Naik Shilpa Selva Felisha Rita Correspondent Soumya JAssistant Editor Ananth VAssociate Editor Indranil Chakraborty Editorial
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