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Krupanidhi College of Pharmacy in Bengaluru is now accelerating its efforts in the area of research and innovations. This comes after the increased focus for new drugs during the Covid pandemic where demand for treatment of infectious diseases and life style disorders was increasing.
We see drug discovery as multidisciplinary in nature. This segment of drug discovery is not limited to development of the best or a suitable medicines but it also helps in maintaining good health if expanded to environmental areas such as pollution control, animal and plant care etc. There is an increased need to drive innovation and this calls to identify projects for academia-industry partnerships, said Prakash V Mallya, Professor & Director, Center for Pharmaceutical Professional Advancement, Krupanidhi College of Pharmacy.
The objective of drug discovery is to increase access to better medicines to improve health. We are in an age where new drugs must be developed so that we can access better treatment for the new disease-causing vectors that continue to evolve and throw up new challenges, he added.
To this end, Krupanidhi College of Pharmacy is very keen in research and development activities. To promote the research, the college has enhanced its infrastructure to house the Krupanidhi Research Incubation Centre (KRIC) which has inked several research pacts between academia and the industry. Additionally, the post graduate research scholars are also required to leap frog into industrial training, to garner the knowledge have the practical exposure to enhance their skills, he added.
The college offers special permissions to attend the workshops and training program on drug discovery and research activities. This is in an effort to motivate research scholars and faculty to expand their current thinking and provide them with opportunities to pursue the current research to be carried out in the college across various departments. Further, conducting a series of one-two day conferences and seminars are a regular affair by the various departments of our college. This is to keep abreast of the drug development research efforts in the space, Prof. Mallya told Pharmabiz.
Despite the funding, continuous regulatory reforms, improved lab infrastructure and industry-academia collaboration, development of life-saving medicines runs into billions of dollars and the long time lines of research and commercialisation are extensive. We in the academia see the need to speed up this giving students and faculty an opportunity to be part of India’s drug discovery efforts. There is also use of technology like artificial intelligence-based drug screening process, big data analytics and machine learning.
Also there is a huge scope for academia-industry partnerships to focus on disease segments such as: oncology, life style disorders, bacterial resistance. There is need for accurate and timely information on the opportunities for partnerships with the Indian pharma which is focusing on research and innovation on unmet medical needs. The interest is to improve outcomes for patients with novel research which could happen with academia-industry collaboration, said Prof. Mallya.
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