Chemists call for investing in research and development of drugs

Chemists from different Islamic countries, while speaking at the COMSTECH international workshop here on Tuesday called for investing in research and development of drugs against poor man's diseases.
The workshop titled, "Modern Applications of Combinatorial Chemistry," was organised by the OIC Ministerial Committee for Scientific and Technological Co-operation (COMSTECH) in collaboration with International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) of the Karachi University and Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS).
While addressing the inaugural ceremony held at the COMSTECH building, Director HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry and ICCBS, Dr Muhammad Iqbal Chaudhry underlined the need to focus attention on poor man's diseases prevalent in the developing countries and stressed the need to make investment for research and development in this sector.
He was of the view that research on medicine by the advanced world is profit centric and world's pharmaceutical corporations are investing for production of drugs, which mostly are not related to ailments prevailing in the developing countries. "OIC and other developing countries must set up a fund for research and development of drugs to treat neglected tropical diseases like dengue, rabies and tuberculosis (TB)", Chaudhry maintained.
"Just like we face food insecurity, we also confront drugs insecurity, therefore, our governments must prioritise the agenda for developing safe drugs and must act to develop drugs targeting local diseases", said Iqbal Chaudhry. Poor man's diseases include a range of diseases caused by individual pathogens, and groups of conditions caused by related microbial species.
They are spread by animal hosts such as dogs, fish or by vectors such as mosquitoes, black flies, snails, bugs and common house flies. Earlier, COMSTECH Advisor on Science, Dr Anwar Nasim introduced to the participants the role and mandate of COMSTECH and told participants from different countries the aims and objectives behind arranging the workshop.
Dr Nasim said, "Through the series of 24 workshops this year, we have planned to train 1000 scientists of the OIC member states in applied fields of cutting edge technologies as we believe that economic prosperity of the Islamic nations including Pakistan is linked to excellence in science and technology."
"Through a competitive process, we select 35 to 50 young scientists from different Islamic countries and then train them in frontier technologies in different scientific fields for which we hire renowned trainers from within the Muslim world and from the advanced countries also such as United States of America, United Kingdom or developed nations." Anwar Nasim said.
Nasim extended warm welcome to the nationals of different OIC and other countries on behalf of Professor Atta-ur-Rahman, the Co-ordinator General of Islamabad-based COMSTECH, which is entrusted to follow up science and technology related decisions of the heads of states and governments of OIC member states, while the message of Executive Director COMSATS Dr Imtinan Elahi Qureshi was read out by Dr Haseeb Ullah.
This workshop is sixth of the series of the international workshops COMSTECH has planned for the current year. Thirty-five scientists, science policy-makers, researchers and trainers from Egypt, Turkey, Nigeria, Sudan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are participating in this three-day workshop, which will end on June 16.