ISLAMABAD: A day-long virtual training in collaboration with the member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will be held on June 3 for the promotion of research culture in medicines and vaccines through strengthening and upgrading the clinical trials.
According to event organizers, the main objective of this virtual training for representatives of National Medicines Regulatory Authorities (NMRAs) from the OIC member countries was to provide a valuable platform to deliberate upon and develop a joint mechanism for research and development specifically clinical trials as a step towards self-reliance in medicine and vaccine.
They added other objectives included to develop a follow-up and implementation mechanism and propose relevant changes in national laws of member countries to strengthen and upgrade the mechanism of conduction of clinical trials.
They said that the event is being organized to present a mechanism and conduct of clinical trials by the member countries besides developing a framework for capacity building, knowledge sharing, and technology transfer mechanism among OIC members’ countries where technically advance OIC members’ countries would upgrade the capacity of the other member countries focusing on the conduction of multi-center and multi-country clinical trials.
Director, Division of Pharmacy Services, Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), and Dr. Abdur Rashid said that there is a lack of capabilities and proper infrastructure in OIC member countries in the fields related to clinical trials, research, and development, and bioequivalence and bioavailability studies.
This has led to the increasing dependence of member countries on European and North American countries for the provision of new drugs, including investigational drugs and the member countries export is meagre due to lack of proper research and development and subsequent clinical trials for investigational drugs and bioequivalence and bioavailability studies for generic drugs, he added.
The main speakers of the session will be Prof. Dr M Iqbal Choudhary, Coordinator General COMSTECH, Islamabad, Asim Rauf, CEO of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, Dr Abdur Rashid, Director, Division of Pharmacy Services, Prof. Dr Abdelbary Elhissi, Professor in Pharmaceutics, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Qatar University, Prof. Dr. M. Raza Shah, ICCBS University of Karachi, Prof. Dr. Khalid Saeed Khan, Investigator, Beatriz Galindo Programme, Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Granada, Spain, Prof Dr Ismail Ibrahim Mohammed Al-Thaqafi, Vice Dean of the College of Applied Sciences, Umm Al-Qura University, Mecca Saudi Arabia and Prof Dr Naveed M Khan, Department of Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Sharjah, UAE. This virtual training is open to academicians, scientists, and the general public from all the member OIC states while the focal persons of the event are Prof Dr Raza Shah, Prof Dr Abdur Rasheed, and Khazima Muazim.