Pharma Focus Asia

Pharma Focus Asia Magazine

This Pharma Magazine is the source for a plethora of unique Pharma articles. Several notable figures from top pharma organisations are featured in the R&D, Manufacturing and Clinical Trials sections, with their expert knowledge of the field.

Strategy

Global Risk Management

Meeting the challenge

Risk management for prescription pharmaceuticals is both a high priority and a significant challenge for the biopharmaceutical industry today Numerous incidents involving the safety and risks of marketed pharmaceutical products in recent years have brought the issue to the forefront of public attention and regulatory scrutiny in the United States...

Getting from Challenge to Change

How far, how fast?

The biopharmaceutical industry is currently experiencing a very challenging environment There are many indicators lower number of product approvals consolidation among companies fewer Big Pharma companies among the top companies decrease in the relative profitability of drug manufacturers decline in the rate of increase of pharmaceutical sales the...

Sustainable Drug Discovery

Galapagos’ alliance strategy

In the past few years we have seen the announcement of many drug discovery alliances between biotechnology and major pharma companies Pharma companies have started to outsource increasing parts of their drug discovery RD to biotechs signalling a trend in a changing industry The alliances seek to capitalise on the synergies between biotechs innovati...

Indian Patent Law

Relevance to global pharmaceutical industry

In India the agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights TRIPS was brought about through an amendment to the Patent Act of and became active as on January and was obliged from that day to grant patents for pharmaceuticals In the Indian Patents Act which provides patent protection for pharmaceutical products or drugs

Drug Development Challenges

The year marked a year low in the introduction of new medical treatments into the global market Over the last twoandahalf decades the pharmaceutical industry has been under increa

Research & Development

Antibacterial Research

Bright future?

The accidental discovery of Penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming in followed by its development for use as a medicine by Australian Nobel Laureate Howard Walter Florey ushered in the era of antibiotics the antibacterial drug discovery peaked after the middle of th century However after the introduction of streptogramin and quinolones in Table no...

Targeted Delivery

Photosensitiser conjugated gold nanoparticles

Photodynamic Therapy PDT a minimal invasive cancer treatment approach holds tremendous promise in particularly treating the local tumours It is based on the administration of a photosensitising compound also called photosensitiser and subsequent irradiation with light of an appropriate wavelength to produce Reactive Oxygen Species ROS The elevated...

Adjuvant Systems

Next stage of rational vaccine design

Vaccine adjuvants compounds used to enhance a vaccine antigens ability to elicit a desired immune response have been known and used for over years to increase the immune response against a given antigen With the continued emergence of new diseases and the need to find ways to address remaining disease challenges new breakthroughs in immunology off...

Early Formulation

Shortening the development timelines

The duration of drug development cycles is continuously being challenged by an increasingly competitive industrial environment The number of drug candidates intended for preclinical and clinical development has dramatically increased by using modern highthroughput technologies such as combinatorial chemistry and pharmacological screening However in...

Enhancing Antibody-based Cancer Therapy

Antibody combinations and dual-targeting bispecific antibodies

The additive and synergistic therapeutic effects derived from combinations of cytotoxic agents support the notion that cancer a disease of multiple genetic alterations must be attacked on multiple fronts In the past decades a number of chemotherapy regimens have been developed These regimens are usually cocktails that comprise several cytotoxic age...

Clinical Trials

Unleashing the Industry’s True Potential

Closed loop clinical trial supply chain

The lead time for conducting clinical trials is one of the critical paths in the launch of a new product for life sciences companies while providing clinical supplies at the right time at the right site is the most daunting challenge faced by the clinical operations team Changes in the trial design and uncertainty in the demand of clinical supplies...

Clinical Supplies

Adapting to trial demand

Whether it is adding new sites in an existing study or adding new doses clinical customers look to the supply chain to be agile with supplies and respond in turn with flexibility while maintaining timely delivery There are many challenges facing clinical supplies and how the supply chain can be prepared to meet the demand changesChallenges faci...

Personalised Healthcare

Hitting the mark

Personalised Healthcare is not a novel concept but has undergone a continual evolution More than years ago diagnosis and treatments were based on what could be seen smelt tasted palpated or intuited About years ago diagnosis and treatment started to be based on a greater understanding of surgery biochemistry and cellular processes Today the focus...

Proteomic Biomarkers

Transforming drug development

The success of many investigational drugs is dependent on matching treatments with the appropriate target populations Variability in response to therapy both with regards to efficacy and to adverse events is leading the pharmaceutical industry down the path of personalised medicine Further pushing the process along are government and private insura...

Global Clinical Development

Reducing Japan’s drug lag

The venues of clinical development are increasingly moving from USA and Europe to Asia Pacific where the increase in simultaneous multinational trials has been very conspicuous In Korea for example the number of such trials has more than doubled between and to In such trials participating sites compete with each other in terms of their speed to...

Human Antibody Discovery

VelocImmune - A novel platform

Antibody therapeutics are one of the fastestgrowing drug classes and take advantage of the endogenous immune system for the creation of novel therapeutics Antibodies are superior drug candidates because they are a natural constituent of the human immune response and possess many important favourable pharmacologic qualities such as halflife tolerabi...

Outsourcing CRO Services to China

The staffing challenge

The business benefits of outsourcing Contract Research Organisation CRO services to China are compelling in todays pharmaceutical marketplace and global economy Labour rates in China are much lower than in the West and additionally China offers a large pool of highly educated research talent that can be readily tapped to staff projects carried ou...

Manufacturing

Moving from R&D to Manufacturing Excellence

Despite the innovations and advances in science the pharmaceutical industry has been more used to incremental change in manufacturing than quantum leaps that anticipate the future Initiatives like Lean manufacturing Six Sigma and other operational excellence programmes attracted the attention of the pharmaceutical industry a few decades later than...

Controlling Production Process

Incorporating analytical methods

There is an increasing interest on drug delivery systems based on macromolecules Peptides and proteins of pharmaceutical interest constitute a growing share of the new drugs coming into the market Traditionally solid state properties were not the first issue when it came to formulation of these products It has to be considered however that many the...

Process Analytical Technology

Application in precipitation processes

The main factors affecting precipitation processes and inline process monitoring when Process Analytical Technology PAT based on inline online spectroscopic methods is applied is discussed herePrecipitationThe main purposes of crystal engineering of pharmaceutical compounds are usually to control crystal morphology crystal size distributio...

Information Technology

Clinical Trial Supply Chain

Streamlining information management

Ensuring the efficiency and validity of clinical trials requires that several factors come together not the least of which is the investigational material The supply chain underlying a clinical trial is a complex entity with product passing through numerous hands before reaching the clinic and ultimately the patientUnderstanding the challenges...

Business Intelligence in Pharma

A key enabler of industry transformation

The pharmaceutical industry is in the midst of fundamental changes The changes have been brought on by the increasing concerns over expiry of patents for major blockbuster drugs weak product pipelines heightened awareness of drug safety globalisation competition from generics and growing value considerations with regards to access to and reimbursem...

Expert Talk

Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing

The challenges

How is India placed in this marketIndia has kept excellent pace when it comes to adoption of international regulatory standards especially with respect to facility and equipments Indian companies have the muscle to build quality plants and machinery and this is evident from the highest number of US FDAapproved plants in India outside of USAAn...

Public Private Partnerships

Why do you think PPPs are necessary in the current scenarioThe global pharmaceutical industry is in the middle of a pipeline crisis The number of incidences of approved drugs being withdrawn from the market and the molecules from development is increasing Added to this the looming loss of revenue from a number of blockbuster drugs going off paten...

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