'Manufacturers waste 300 pc resources to produce 1 gm of drug'

Therefore there are thoughts of manufacturing drugs which could be prepared using natural products including herbal base, said Apotex Pharmachem India Pvt Ltd Managing Director Dr P M Akbarali.

Speaking at the ICSSC-2011 at Mangalore University on Thursday, he urged for the need to bring a paradigm shift in the filed of pharmacy. Most of the drugs produced are not sustainable.

The manufacturers waste the resource 30 times more to produce 1 gram of drug. It is essential to control the excessive waste and make the optimum utilisation of resources, he said.

Later, speaking to the media persons on the sidelines of the programme, he said that most of the allopathy medicines which are manufactured in the Western countries cause side effects to the consumers. “The drugs manufactured currently could be compared to free size apparels, where the same drug is administered to all patients with the same disease.

But there are several instances where a drug which works out with a particular patient may not cure the disease of another patient. Therefore, extensive studies should be made in this regard and different drugs for people with different body types should be manufactured,”he noted.

Elucidating the necessity to manufacture drugs based on the geographical features of each region, he said a traditional Chinese medicine, artemisinin, has proved of a great help in curing malaria compared to the medicines manufactured in Western countries.

He also criticised the pharmaceutical companies for taking a chance while manufacturing drugs.

“Several Multi National Companiess, which have the sole objective of making money, manufacture drugs without under going thorough research, due to which only a few medicines survive in the market while rest of them get rejected.”