A state-of-the-art facility for drug development, funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), was inaugurated at the Regional Centre of Anna University here by G. J. Samathanam, Head, Technology Development and Transfer, DST, on Friday.
The National Facility for Drug Development (NFDD) has been established with the objective of facilitating drug development and animal model development for drugs of herbal and synthetic origin. The facility will be used by the academia and pharmaceutical and allied industries.
Dr. Samathanam said that the practice of targeting new combinations of herbal drugs for some infectious diseases had signalled the dawn of a new era in research.
Partnering with different institutions was necessary to cut down the timeframe for developing a new drug, he said and insisted that the new facility should benefit the common people.
S. Muttan, Regional Director, in his presidential address, said that the NFDD had been recognised as a Centre for Excellence in Nanobio Translational Research by Anna University. M. Dhilip Kumar, Assistant Director of Drug Control, wanted the NFDD to get accreditation for global recognition.
K. Ruckmani, Director, NFDD, said that the facility would fulfil the need for continuous improvement and innovation in knowledge disbursement and research in health care to improve the quality of human life. Conceived as a project in 2005, work on NFDD began in 2010 with financial assistance of Rs. 6 crore from the DST and Rs 1.5 crore from Anna University.
NFDD incorporates an instrumentation laboratory, animal cell culture facility, liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrophotometer and pulmonary research laboratories. The individual units were declared open by Dr. Muttan, Mr. Dhilip Kumar, John Britto, Rector, St. Joseph’s College, and M. A. Akbarsha, Director, Mahatma Gandhi-Doerenkamp Centre for Alternatives to Use of Animals in Life Science Education, Bharathidasan University, according to a press release.
