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| Gland Pharma, NGO tie up for cheaper kala azar drug | |
| Joe C Mathew / New Delhi December 15, 2009, 0:36 IST | |
Hyderabad-based injectable manufacturer Gland Pharma, in association with US-based NGO Institute of One World Health (IOWH) will introduce a new medicine – paromamycin for kala azar (leishmaniasis), an illness that affects 200,000 people in India annually. The 30-year-old company will supply the medicines on a no-profit basis within two months.
Bihar accounts for a majority of kala azar patients. The medicine (intra-muscular injection) will be more effective than the existing ones for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis (the acute form of disease, which if left untreated will prove fatal) and will cost half the price, Richard Chin, chief executive officer of IOWH told Business Standard.
The NGO has already secured marketing approval for the medicine in India. It is in the process of getting regulatory approval registrations done in Nepal and Bangladesh, the two neighbouring nations also prone to the disease.
Ravi Penmesta, managing director of Gland Pharma, said the initiative is the largest charity initiative undertaken by the company. “We will manufacture this drug on a no-profit basis and have the capacity to cater to 0.5 million patients at any point in time,” he said.
The World Bank and the central government are already committed to finance the treatment cost, which mostly affect the poorer sections of society. IOWH, which assisted the development of the drug through a $20 million funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is trying to get the government include the new medicine in the National Vector borne Disease Control Programme.
Kala Azar is a poverty-driven disease transmitted through the bite of a sandfly, causing chronic fever, weight loss, spleen enlargement, liver enlargement and anemia. It is endemic in 65 countries, primarily in the developing world, and the population at risk is estimated at 200 million, IOWN data said.
IOWN is also working on developing a new malaria medicine with sanofi-aventis and has partnerships with Roche and Novartis to develop medicines to treat childhood diarrhea. In both cases, research programmes are in the early stages.
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