International confce on drug development starts in capital
A four-day long international conference on "Drug Discovery and Development Research in Developing Countries-2015" started in the capital yesterday with an aim to produce affordable drugs for developing countries.
More than 500 doctors, teachers, researchers and entrepreneurs of pharmaceutical industries from home and abroad, including India, Pakistan, Australia, England, Japan, Italy, Turkey and Singapore, gathered at the Bangladesh University of Health Sciences' Mirpur campus to participate in the event.
Organised by the university and sponsored by the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), and Incepta Pharmaceuticals Limited, the conference's theme is "Building Research and Development (R&D) capacity in Science & Technology (S&T) lagging countries for Discovery and Development of new Drugs from Regional Biota".
At the inaugural ceremony, Prof Mohabbat Khan, chairman in-charge and member of University Grants Commission, emphasised the importance of new knowledge to develop a science- and knowledge-based society.
Md Sayef Uddin, secretary general of Diabetic Association of Bangladesh, pointed out the high cost of drugs for diabetes, and spoke about how this affects diabetics as the disease is life-long.
Noting that long trial periods often push higher the R&D costs and in turn increases the price of drugs, he urged researchers to find out ways of shortening trial periods without hampering the quality of the drugs.
Researchers will be presenting 47 studies on subjects varying from regional biota. Besides 39 oral and 27 poster presentations topics, including immunology, therapeutic treatment, processing biotechnology for large scale production of biopharmaceuticals will also be held.
Prof Liaquat Ali, vice chancellor of the university, hoped the university can organise such conferences every two years to encourage and develop knowledge on R&D of drugs in the country.
Mahbubul Karim, director, technical operations, Incepta Pharma; and Ruhul Amin, director of Drug Administration, among others, also spoke on the occasion.
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