It would be great to have ayurvedic specialists exposed to the Amazonian plant diversity and working with native American healers to come up with new remedies.
The Associated Press:
Many academic health centers offer programs that include traditional Chinese treatments or Ayurvedic medicine from India. The University of New Mexico goes beyond that, says management of its new Center for Life.
“The uniqueness of our program is that we not only embrace Eastern and Western philosophies, but we try to integrate the traditions of New Mexico,” said Dr. Arti Prasad, the center’s director. Thus, Native American healers and Hispanic curanderas are invited to work with patients at the clinic.
The Center for Life, which opened Friday, offers what Prasad prefers to call “complementary medicine” — augmenting modern medicine with practices and treatments that may go back thousands of years in other cultures.
The philosophy has its basis in preventing disease, what Prasad describes as “keeping the body in balance, staying healthy, exercising, eating healthy and doing good things in your life.”
Western medicine works to find disease early with such tests as mammograms, while Eastern medicine steps in earlier to try to prevent disease, she said. If there’s an imbalance in the body and a person becomes ill, Eastern medicine tries to get the body back in balance, she said.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Opportunities to set-up API production facilities in LatAm to serve this region
via Business Wire
By 2012, the value of the India’s pharmaceutical market is expected to reach an impressive US$17.8bn mark, an increase from the current figure of US$12.2bn. Clearly, the market allows plenty of commercial opportunities. However, industry consolidation around a handful of large domestic players would squeeze smaller companies. Indeed, industry leaders, including Ranbaxy and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, have continued to be active in early 2008. The latter launched a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) Supanac (diclofenac potassium). Supanac, in-licensed from Swiss Applied Pharma Research (APR), targets the US$688mn NSAID market, with two other leading NSAID brands produced by Dr Reddy’s, namely Nise (nimesulide) and Retoz (etoricoxib). Similarly, the domestic active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) industry is showing signs of expansion. In January 2008, Indian firm Dishman Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals reported its plan to build an API plant in China, in an effort to further penetrate the rapidly expanding contract research and manufacturing services (CRAMS) market. In the same month, Israeli generics giant Teva revealed its intention to strengthen its presence in Asia by specifically choosing India for API production. India, which already has over 200 good manufacturing practice (GMP) facilities, the highest number outside the US, is posing a strong challenge to China as the largest global API supplier.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Possibilities exist for acquiring Argentine pharma companies outright and using that as a base to serve the huge Brazilian market. Where multinationals fear to tread, Indian pharma companies with their cost, scale advantage can do well. Import of finished drugs into Argentina is banned. Active pharma ingredients can be imported.
via Business Wire
Continued infusions of cash by the Brazilian government into public healthcare, and broader positive growth dynamics in Latin America – along with relative weakness in the peso – were the main drivers of exports for Argentine producers. Another reason for looking abroad are the continued persistence of price controls on medicines in Argentina – a major deterrent for multinationals – and more cheeringly, some signs of a harder line being taken by medicines regulator ANMAT.
Back in December, we upgraded the country’s Business Environment Rating (BER) for the Approvals Process subcategory from 4 to 6. Our reappraisal was triggered by the announcement that Argentina will become the first Latin American member of the Pharmaceutical Inspection Convention and Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme, along with broader improvements seen in enforcing rules on controversial drugs. In January 2008, Brazil’s ANVISA regulator and ANMAT agreed to harmonise their respective pharmacopoeias, or drug classification and listing systems. This too is a positive move, as ANVISA has emerged as one of the most proactive in the Latin American region in improving methodology and enforcement.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Potential joint research opportunities for Indian organizations
Translated excerpts from LANACION.com
The frogs and toads of our country[Argentina] could be a very important tool in the development of new drugs against TB
Researchers there say that secretions from the skin of amphibians containing compounds capable of fighting pathogens, including the cause of tuberculosis.
“All living organisms are able to produce compounds that are part of their natural defense system,” he told BBC Science Dr. Georgina Tonarelli, a researcher from the Faculty of Chemical and Biological Sciences of the Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL), Argentina “We are working with compounds frog species characteristics of the provinces of Santa Fe and Entre Rios (in the east),” he adds.
According to the World Health Organization, each year there are at the world around 425,000 new cases of MDR, mostly in the countries of the former Soviet Union, China and India.
“So far we have succeeded in isolating peptides capable of producing four inhibiting the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis,” says Alvaro Siano, fellow of the National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT), which is also involved in the investigation.
Popularity: 4% [?]
