Indian Pharma Within Global Reach?

The Indian pharmaceutical industry is presently going through a phase of transition and potential consolidation, owing to India's new TRIPS-compliant intellectual property regime and other rules aimed at enhancing the industry's credibility nationally and internationally. Appropriate policy interventions can play a large role in cushioning the transition (and gradual consolidation) of the industry post-2005. Using firm level data collected in 2004-2005, this paper seeks to make two major contributions in this regard. The research findings show that the Indian pharmaceutical sector is a heterogeneous mix of firms with vast differences in innovative capabilities. Based on these differences, the groups can be categorized into specific "innovation modes" (the innovator, the niche operator and the manufacturer), each mode being a step closer towards the innovative pharmaceutical firm. Second, the paper highlights how the emerging strategies of firms in all three groups, although different, underpin the importance of systemic coordination in the pharmaceutical sector. The analysis links both these findings to policies pursued in the pharmaceutical sector over the past four decades and highlights the role of differential innovation policy in ensuring optimal sectoral performance.Pharmaceutical industry, Innovation policy, TRIPS, Intellectual Propery, IPR, Property rights, India

India's product patent protection regime: Less or more of "pills for the poor"?

The year 2005 marks the end of transition period for many developing countries with competent pharmaceutical sectors that competed in supplying generic versions of patented drugs to LDCs before, thereby inducing price competition and enhancing access to medicines. In a post-2005 scenario, the critical issue is whether LDCs without adequate manufacturing capabilities can make use of compulsory licensing expeditiously to induce price competition and secure lower prices. This paper uses empirical evidence collected during a firm-level survey of the Indian pharmaceutical sector to generate evidence on emerging strategies of firms. It shows that the vigour of compulsory licensing as a price-leveraging instrument post-2005 is incumbent mainly on its economic feasibility. It shows that Indian firms view the market potential (in terms of market size and profits involved in such supply, especially if they have to make specific technological investments to produce the drug) of the mechanism much more severely than before, and may be less inclined to engage in such production if their commercial expectations are grossly unmet. The analysis assesses implications of emerging strategies of firms in the Indian pharmaceutical sector for access to medicines both domestically and internationally, and highlights the challenges involved.product patents, Indian pharmaceuticals, generics, access

Rough Road to Market: Institutional Barriers to Innovations in Africa

Translating R&D and inventive efforts into a market product is characterized by significant financial skills, and the ability to overcome technical and instititonal barriers. Research into and translation of new technologies such as biotechnology products to the market requires even greater resources. This paper aims to understand the key factors that foster or hinder the complex process of translating R&D efforts into innovative products. Different pathways exist in developed countries such as firm-level efforts, the use of IPs, the spin-off of new firms that develop new products, or a mixture of these. Developing countries differ substantially in the kinds of instruments they use because of their considerably weaker institutional environment and for this reason our framework takes a systemic and institutional perspective. The paper comtributes to this issue by examining systemic institutional barriers to commercializing biotechnology in a develping context within a systems of innovation framework.research and development, biotechnology, commercialization, innovation, Africa, learning, institution building

Effect of Infrared Treatment on the Disinfestation of Black Gram Seeds (Vigna mungo) on Storage

Effect of infrared (IR) treatment on disinfestation of black gram seeds was studied during storage. Untempered and tempered (15% moisture) seeds were IR treated at 150, 250, 350 and 4500C, packed in polypropylene pouches (PP), stored at ambient conditions (15-350C) to check infestation periodically. During storage, seed weight and bulk density decreased significantly (p≤0.05) with the significant increase (p≤0.05) in uric acid contents in control and IR treated seeds at 150 and 2500C. Based on the uric acid level, control as well as IR treated seeds at 1500C became unfit for consumption after 3 months of storage and the seeds treated at 2500C after 6 months. Uric acid content remained almost unchanged in the samples treated at 350 and 4500C throughout the storage period. In untempered samples, IR treatment affected germination and rheology at 3500C, while in tempered ones germination was affected at all the temperatures of IR treatment with less rheological changes. Keywords: Black gram, infrared, disinfestation, physico- chemical properties, rheology, germination, storage

Inactivation of Surface Microorganisms of Moth bean (Vigna aconitifolia) by Micronization and Changes in its Physico Chemical and Rheological Properties

Moth bean seeds (Vigna aconitifolia) were micronized at different temperatures viz 150, 250, 300, 350 and 4000 C to study the efficacy of treatment to check the surface microorganisms. Surface microbes were found to decrease by 90 % when micronized at 3000 C with more than 85% germination at this temperature. Functional and rheological properties were not affected much up to the treatment of the seeds at 3000 C. Above this temperature, significant changes (p≤0.05) in functional and rheological properties were observed. Antinutritional factors viz  phytic acid, trypsin inhibition activity (TIA), tannins and saponins decreased significantly (p≤0.05). Total phenols and total flavonoids also found to decrease slightly but significantly (p≤0.05) during micronization which correlated with the decrease in antioxidant activity as observed by DPPH radical scavenging methods. Micronization of moth bean at 3000 C can be used effectively for the surface inactivation of microbes without affecting the seed quality deleteriously. Keywords: Moth bean, micronization, surface inactivation, rheology, physico-chemical change

Regulatory Model of Mirna-125 in Leukemia

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, subtypes of RNA that are 22-25 nucleotides in length that regulate the gene expression by targeting homologous sequences in messenger RNA (mRNA). Their unusual expressions have been observed in various types of cancers. In this paper we first briefly outline of multiple pairwise alignment of primiRNA- 125 of three organisms and secondary structure. We then discuss in detail on binding sites of miRNA-125 with different target genes to known the binding energy using computational tool. Finally, we discuss on mechanism of miRNA-125 over-expression causes different types of leukemia due to abnormal expression of gene present on chromosome 21. Thus we have reported that one of the major causes of leukemia is abnormal expression of miRNA- 125. Ful

Computational identification of putative miRNAs and their target genes in pathogenic amoeba Naegleria fowleri

Naegleria fowleri is a parasitic unicellular free living eukaryotic amoeba. The parasite spreads through contaminated water and causes primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). Therefore, it is of interest to understand its molecular pathogenesis. Hence, we analyzed the parasite genome for miRNAs (microRNAs) that are non-coding, single stranded RNA molecules. We identified 245 miRNAs using computational methods in N. fowleri, of which five miRNAs are conserved. The predicted miRNA targets were analyzed by using miRanda (software) and further studied the functions by subsequently annotating using AmiGo (a gene ontology web tool)

Maritime Information Databank – A Suggested Model

As a part of continuing research, it is important for any country to identify technological advances in any field and create a national trust of information for use by researchers and general users. With reference to the marine sector, which is a prime sector for the development of any country, it is essential to create such data banks of information to cater to the needs of ship builders, ship owners and the researchers. This article discusses few of the processes involved for the creation of a maritime data bank

Innovation and Competitive Capacity in Bangladeshs Pharmaceutical Sector

The global pharmaceutical sector is highly patent intensive, and firms rely on product, process and formulation patents to protect their innovations. Intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical products, as contained in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (hereafter, the TRIPS Agreement) have been defended on grounds of extensive R&D investments required to discover and develop new drugs. But at the same time, grant of uniform pharmaceutical patents in all developing and least developed countries that are members of the World Trade Organization in accordance with the TRIPS Agreement, raises a range of issues for access to medicines. These issues can be framed under three broad areas: the restriction of reverse engineering possibilities for firms in developing countries and its implications for catch-up in this sector, higher prices of drugs and access to medicines as well as access to technologies due to patents on upstream technologies. The transitional arrangements under the TRIPS Agreement specifically mandated that all developing countries that are members to the WTO enact national laws that are TRIPS-compliant by 2005. As a result, from 2005 onwards, several countries like India, which played an important role as producers and exporters of generic copies of brand name products patented outside the country, can no longer produce such drugs due to the introduction of TRIPS-compliant patent regimes in their countries. Least developed countries have an extension until 2016 to implement the pharmaceutical patent provisions of the TRIPS Agreement under the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. However, such legal flexibility is quite meaningless for least developed countries in the absence of local technological capabilities to produce generic drugs amongst least developed countries. Bangladesh, although a least developed country, is an exception in this regard with thriving domestic processing sectors that are actively engaged in producing textiles and ready made garments (RMGs), processed food products and generic drugs. Therefore, the question that looms large in the global access to medicines debate is whether Bangladesh's pharmaceutical sector can gradually evolve to provide low-cost substitutes of important patented drugs to other developing and least developed countries? This study is an original empirical investigation into issues of innovative capacity and competitiveness of the local pharmaceutical sector in Bangladesh.Bangladesh, WTO, TRIPs, Intellectual Property Rights, Pharmaceutical Industry, Public Health

Computational prediction and identification of miRNAs in ssRNA viruses

MiRNAs are conserved endogenous small non-​coding RNA mols. play a very important role in posttranscriptional regulation of gene by binding to mRNA.miRNAs have been identified in plants, animals, invertebrates and even in viruses. Recent studies have proved that as like DNA viruses even cytoplasmic RNA viruses encodes miRNA by noncanonical pathway.To find the miRNAs encoded by both (+) ssRNA and (-​) ssRNA viruses, we used computational tool VMir to screen the complete genomes of selected RNA viruses. The predicted precursor miRNA hairpin structures obtained from VMir were further analyzed in miPred to identify real and pseudo miRNA. The real miRNAs analyzed in blastx program to exclude protein coding sequences and then finally identified mature miRNAs by using matureBayes.In our studies we analyzed 45 viral genomes, finally we obsd. that more miRNAs encoded by (-​) ssRNA than the (+) ssRNA