Pharma News

The past 10 years have been very crucial for the Indian Pharma Landscape.  From 2005-2015; the revenue of the top 10 companies grew at 19% which is almost at par with the industry growth of 18%. Things have significantly changed now with US markets capping prices of crucial drugs that have impacted the overall profit margins.
Indian pharma companies have to nimbly navigate contingencies by expanding the number of FDA approved sites to secure a dominant position in the US market. The US contributes about one third of the total Indian pharma exports. Furthermore, Indian pharma manufacturing companies accounted for 34 per cent of the total ANDA approvals by the US in 2016.

Combining the PD-1 immune check point inhibitor nivolumab with the monoclonal antibody ipilimumab showed a consistent safety profile in special populations with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to research presented today by at the IASLC 2019 World Conference on Lung Cancer hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

The rate of chronic hypertension among pregnant women age 35 and over in the United States has increased by more than 75% since 1970, with black women suffering from persistent high blood pressure at more than twice the rate of white women, according to a Rutgers study.

Scientists from the National Institutes of Health and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have devised a potential treatment against a common type of leukemia that could have implications for many other types of cancer. The new approach takes aim at a way that cancer cells evade the effects of drugs, a process called adaptive resistance.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded approximately $11.3 million to 23 institutions across the United States to collaborate with community partners to develop locally relevant plans for diagnosing, treating and preventing HIV in areas with high rates of new HIV cases.

Recently the National Institutes of Health called on researchers to make the standards and practices for conducting early stage, or preclinical, medical research on animals more like those used for clinical trials. To facilitate this change, NIH will fund a nationwide preclinical trial platform designed to systematically and efficiently test novel treatments for acute ischemic stroke in rodents. Seven labs will work together, as part of the Stroke Preclinical Assessment Network (SPAN), to employ rigorous, clinical research practices, like randomization and blinding, while assessing the effectiveness of six potential neuroprotective therapies in reducing ischemic brain injury. The funding estimate for the network is $4 million over three years.

Insilico Medicine has developed GENTRL, a new artificial intelligence system for drug discovery that dramatically accelerates the process from years to days. In the industry’s first successful experimental validation of such AI technology for drug discovery in cells and animals, Insilico successfully tested the technology by creating a series of entirely new molecules capable of combating disorders like fibrosis.

A mobile app supported system developed by an Indo-Australian team to help identify and better manage people at high risk of cardiovascular disease has been shown to be beneficial in a study conducted in rural communities in Indonesia. The application was developed in Australia and piloted in India. It is now being taken to other countries.

Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad have developed a method to produce controlled-release oral tablets for treating fungal infections and kala azar. The tablets were found to release the drug Amphotericin B in a sustained and controlled manner over a period of 10 days.