The pharmacology sector needs to promote a holistic medicine system rather than be disease-specific alone while manufacturing drugs, former Director of the Central Drug Research Institute V.P. Kamboj said here on Friday.
Mr. Kamboj, who was the chief guest at the inaugural of the annual conference of the Southern Regional Indian Pharmacological Society (SRIPS) at the PSG Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, said ancient systems such as Ayurveda and Siddha had practised holistic therapy. These systems did not focus on one particular disease that a patient suffered from. They looked at a patient as a whole and identified all other conditions in the body that needed treatment.
A balanced diet, yoga and physical exercise were advised by these systems as part of the preventive medicine that they promoted.
“But, we have moved far away from these concepts. Young pharmacologists should advocate the concept of holistic treatment even as they get into drug research and development,” he said.
Mr. Kamboj pointed out that India has such rich biodiversity that it enabled the use of many plants for making medicines.
On drug research world-wide, he said that from an investment of $ 1 million in the 1960s, it was now $ 1.7 billion. And, the trial system had progressed from animal models to in-vitro. However, the success rate in gene therapy was dismal so far.
While research could continue on the one hand, the focus should be on a wider approach. Dr. Kamboj summed up that a diseases-free society could be created only with a holistic system of medicine.
President of SRIPS and Director of Tropical Botanical Garden Research Institute in Thiruvananthapuram A. Subramonium said pharmacology played a crucial role in health care and there was a need to create awareness on this among the public.
Drugs should be available to treat all diseases and medical conditions at an affordable rate. Newer drugs were needed to treat infectious diseases in view of the emerging drug resistance.
The health care and pharmacology sector should join hands to develop such drugs.
Even the West was looking at India as a centre for clinical trials as it had about 200 medical colleges, 15,000 hospitals and world class laboratories.
About 500 clinical trials going on since 2008 and 400 of these were sponsored by the drug industry.
Clinical trials were inevitable in the effort to produce new drugs, but it should compromise patient safety.
Mr. Subramonium called for greater focus on medicinal plants. The depletion of the plant population was a cause for concern as these could help in the development of new drugs.
There were reports that at least 100 plants had anti-diabetes property.
This called for proper research. Agro-technology and bio-technology should not be de-linked from pharmacological evaluation.
Organising chairman of the conference S. Ramalingam and secretary M. Ramanathan outlined the objectives of the conference. It was organised by the Department of Pharmacology in the medical institute and the PSG College of Pharmacy.
The organisers said the meet was sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology of the Union Government and the Indian Council of Medical Research. The deliberations on Friday and Saturday would focus on drug development and clinical trials and the challenges facing drug discovery efforts.
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