India's push to indigenous research finally reaping benefits: Mandaviya

For any society to move forward, research and innovation remain a crucial aspect. India has given push to indigenous research and this is reaping benefits for us now, said Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday.

Mandaviya was inaugurating ICMR-NARFBR (National Animal Resource Facility for Biomedical Research) at Genome Valley, Hyderabad on Saturday. Speaking on the occasion, the Health Minister highlighted government's push for indigenous research and innovation.

He said "During Covid pandemic, Prime Minister emphasised on making indigenous vaccines. When world was suffering from the shortage of vaccines, India took up this challenge and our scientific community proved their mettle by creating those vaccines. When the import of foreign vaccines would have taken 5-10 years, with the political leadership's wholehearted support and stakeholders being mobilised, India's scientific community produced these vaccines in one year's time."

"ICMR-NARFBR has potential to make India a key global player in biomedical research in 21st-century. Through provision of quality services in support of biomedical research & training with adherence to highest international standards for human & ethical animal care and use, this resource facility can play a crucial role in improving health and welfare of the nation," he said on the occasion.

NARFBR is an apex facility which will provide ethical care and use and welfare of laboratory animals during research. The newly built centre will work as the state-of-the-art facility for not just ethical animal studies but spans from basic, applied to regulatory animal research. It will help in capacity building of new researchers and will create processes for pre-clinical testing of new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics within the country along with quality assurance checks.

Celebrating India's manpower and brain power, Mandaviya said that Indians have remained at the forefront of creative fields, be it research institutions, technology, or pharma companies etc.

Highlighting India's key role as pharmacy of the world, he said that "for every four pills made in the world, one is made in India. Thus, we now want to make India a hub not just for medicine manufacturing but for pharma research as well. For this to happen, we need to create robust processes for clinical trials which in turn require animal facilities. Hence, NARFBR will play a key role in making this vision real."