New Delhi Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma has mooted a new formula to the group of ministers (GoM) on pharma pricing to keep prices of essential medicines in check. Sharma recommended that the weighted average price of all drug brands that have more than 5% market share in a particular therapeutic segment should be fixed as the ceiling price of that particular drug.

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals is set to enter the final stage of clinical trials for its new drug, Revamilast, across several countries this year. It is meant for treatment of inflammatory disorders like asthma and rheumatoid arthritis. Glenmark may soon seek approval for Phase-III trials in the US, UK and India.

“Glenmark plans to file an IND (Investigational New Drug application) for Revamilast in the US in the third quarter of the current financial year. The company intends to initiate Phase-III trials for at least one indication by the end of FY13,” chairman and managing director Glenn Saldanha told Business Standard.

Who will now be held responsible? Whose negligence is all this? And will the guilty face the music?

At least 350 girls in Tezpur and 45 in Mangaldoi fell ill after they were given folic acid tablets under a National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scheme in Sonitpur and Darrang district on Wednesday. The Mangaldoi DC has ordered a magistrate-level inquiry into the incident. Condemning the incident, the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) has demanded of the State government to find out the manufacturers of the tablets and punish them.

A third of malaria drugs used around the world to stem the spread of the disease are counterfeit, data suggests.

Researchers who looked at 1,500 samples of seven malaria drugs from seven countries in South East Asia say poor-quality and fake tablets are causing drug resistance and treatment failure.

Data from 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa including over 2,500 drug samples showed similar results.

Experts say The Lancet Infectious Diseases research is a "wake-up call".

A third of malaria drugs used around the world to keep the spread of the disease at bay are counterfeit, recent data has suggested. According to a study published in the reputed journal the Lancet, around 7 per cent of the drugs tested in India was found to be of poor quality with many being fake.

Researchers who looked at 1,500 samples of seven malaria drugs from seven countries in Southeast Asia said poor-quality and fake tablets are causing drug resistance and treatment failure. “Much of this morbidity and mortality could be avoided if drugs available to patients were efficacious, high quality, and used correctly,” said the Lancet.

Fake and substandard malaria drugs are a growing threat to efforts to beat back the disease, a new study sponsored by the federal government has concluded.

Scientists from the National Institutes of Health analyzed 27 sets of tests of antimalaria drugs purchased in Southeast Asia and Africa between 1999 and 2010. The researchers published the results on Monday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Tokyo:Over one in three anti-malarial drugs sold in southeast Asia are fake while a third of samples in sub-Saharan Africa failed chemical testing for containing too much or too little of the active ingredient, potentially encouraging drug resistance. Around 7% of the drugs tested in India was found to be of poor quality with many being fake.
A Lancet study to be announced on Tuesday says 3.3 billion people are at risk of malaria, which is endemic in 106 countries. Every year, between 655,000 and 1.2 million people die from Plasmodium falciparum infection.