‘’Collaborative commercialisation of incremental innovation could help bring affordable new drugs’’

Tapan Ray

Alchemy, a medieval chemical science and a speculative philosophy aiming at achieving transmutation of the base metals into gold searching for a universal cure for disease and indefinitely prolonging life, though not considered a science by many, gradually became the basis for the development of chemistry into the 17th century. However, perceivable impact of chemistry on humanity, through its smaller incremental innovation, started being felt only in the second half of the 19th century.

Experts in this field often opine that the current form of human civilization has been made possible, to a great extent, through significant advancement of incremental innovation in chemistry and its role in modern technology. Chemistry is therefore considered by many as an interface between the physical world on the one hand and the humanity on the other.

While deliberating on this issue, a close similarity between the development of pharmaceutical chemistry and information technology (IT) comes at the top of mind. In both these areas incremental innovation has been playing a decisive role across the world since long, immensely benefiting the humanity.

Today, one finds a striking similarity between small and inexpensive incremental innovation in IT and the same in the pharma chemistry. Both are creative as well as inventive and belong to the knowledge economy of the 21st century.

Scientists in both these communities need to be encouraged and rewarded for generating such innovative ideas, which can lead to their effective commercialisation for the benefit of general population of the country. Unfortunately current ecosystem for fostering innovation in the country does not seem to encourage this process.

That said, there are still some questions, which will need to be effectively answered. The nature of the commercialisation process of these two sciences, as we know, though seemingly similar in terms of innovativeness, is indeed quite different on the ground. In the IT community, two people can implement an idea with minimal resource requirement and could end up with a profitable commercialised product, without much difficulty. In contrast, two chemists may come up with a brilliant idea, which in many cases, may require significant investment of resources much before to even think to get the initial product commercialised. Subsequent steps of scaling up will be a separate issue altogether, with more resource commitment.

Usually, the process of commercialisation of incremental innovation in chemistry takes a much longer time scale, as these are not usually spare time projects, unlike IT. The cost involved in testing out and implementing a new idea in chemistry is very high and may not even be possible without any robust institutional backing or funding arrangements.

Thus, there is a greater need to target inexpensive smaller incremental innovation in pharma chemistry for consumers’ interest, if encouraged by the government through appropriate policy measures.

Some illustrative examples of such smaller incremental innovation in pharma chemistry are as follows:

1. Development of pharmaceutical co-crystals
2. Merger of pharmaceutical chemistry of traditional and modern medicines for enhancing efficacy and safety of a drug substance.
3. Chemical technology switch: Taking technology of one field and transferring it to a different field to get a new drug substance
4. Application of polymorphic chemistry in the drug discovery process.

This process has already begun not just globally, but locally, as well. It now needs to be fostered with utmost care for the benefit of the nation.

Some of the examples are as follows:

Global experience: The chemistry department of Oxford University, UK, which is incidentally the biggest chemistry department of the western world, has reportedly made significant advances in commercialising incremental innovation in chemistry. Among many, they created and commercialised the following three entities through such incremental innovation: Medisense, Oxford Molecular and Oxford Asymmetry.

Indian experience: In India, despite all challenges, the commercialisation process of smaller incremental innovation in chemistry has also begun. The Chemistry Department of the University of Delhi has reportedly developed 11 patentable technologies for improved drug delivery system using nano-particles. One such technology was development of ‘smart’ hydrogel nano-particles for encapsulating water-soluble drugs. This technology was reportedly sold to Dabur Research Foundation in 1999.

Another nano-particle drug delivery technology in opthalmogy area was also commercialised by transferring it to Chandigarh-based Panacea Biotech.

Creation of an appropriate ecosystem to help this process gaining momentum is the need of the hour, especially, to make affordable new drugs available to the patients, contributing significantly to the progress of the healthcare sector of the nation.

Thus, collaborative commercialisation of smaller and inexpensive incremental innovation in pharma chemistry, I reckon, could play a key role in providing affordable modern medicines or even a New Drug Delivery System (NDDS) to a vast majority of the ailing population of the nation, as India transforms itself into a knowledge superpower.