OMICS Group of Conferences is known for organising conferences on issues vital to the Indian and global pharma industry. Dr Srinubabu Gedela, Director, OMICS Group of Conferences, reveals more to Sachin Jagdale about pharma conferences and their plans for the Indian pharma industry
Give us some background information about OMICS’ 2nd International Conference and Exhibition on Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs.
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| Dr Srinubabu Gedela |
The conference will be held from November 23-24, 2012 at HICC Hyderabad, India. The two-day conference will have four sessions divided into 11 tracks and will witness a plethora of 60 speakers, 350 delegates and about 200 poster presenters from all over the world, together at a single platform to discuss the ongoing research and advancements in the field of pharma regulatory affairs.
Can you describe the nature of the crowd that would participate in this event?
It is going to see a gathering of regulatory experts from across the industry and academia, who will discuss the latest updates and pressing issues in the field of pharma regulatory affairs. The grandeur of the event can be made out from the number of speakers and delegates that are going to be present at the event, which is expected to reach a count of almost 400, flying from over 15 countries.
What will the delegates gain from the conference?
Initiation of cross-border co-operations between scientists and institutions is facilitated at the conference. This is an excellent opportunity for delegates from universities and institutions to interact with leading industry experts and debate on the latest regulatory updates. Experts from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are anticipated as chief guest for the meeting while prominent personalities like Dr Prakash Nagarkatti (University of South Carolina, US), Dr Patrick L Leoni (Euromed Management, France), Dr Jagat RJ Kanwar (Deakin University), Dr SV Krishna Prasad (Cito Healthcare, India) and Dr Shivanand P Puthli (Panacea Biotech, India) will be the keynote speakers. Pharma-2012 is supported by many organisations like RxPharma, PharmaPhorum, tradeindia.com, Thompson Reuter, Innovaro, Conferensum and Aark Store. Auriga Research is going to be the event partner.
Besides regulatory affairs, which other pharma-related topics have been covered/ discussed in OMICS’ conferences till now?
Bioavailability and Bioequivalence
- International Conference and Exhibition on Bioequivalence & Bioavailability: Pharmaceutical R&D Summit, March 1-3, 2010; Marriott Convention Centre, Hyderabad, India with a theme ‘Practical Solutions to Pharmaceutical Bioequivalence/Bioavailability Implementation.’
- 2nd World Congress on Bioavailability & Bioequivalence: Pharmaceutical R&D Summit, June 6-8, 2011; Las Vegas, US with a theme ‘Analyze Novel Approaches of Bioequivalence & Bioavailability Studies.’
- 3rd World Congress on Bioavailability & Bioequivalence: Pharmaceutical R&D Summit, March 26-28, 2012; Marriott Convention Centre, Hyderabad, India with a theme ‘Novel approaches in drug development by comparing Bioavailability and Bioequivalence studies.’
Analytical and Bioanalytical Techniques
- International Conference and Exhibition on Analytical and Bioanalytical Techniques, November 1-3, 2010; Marriott Convention Centre, Hyderabad with a theme ‘Advanced Scientific Technologies & Industry Insight.’
- 2nd International Conference on Analytical & Bioanalytical Techniques, December 16-17, 2011; San Francisco Airport Marriott, US with a theme ‘Transforming the future with advances in Analytical & Bioanalytical techniques.’
Pharmaceutics and Novel Drug Delivery Systems
- International Conference on Pharmaceutics & Novel Drug Delivery Systems, June 6-8, 2011; Las Vegas, US with a theme ‘Advancements in Pharmaceutics & Novel Drug Delivery Systems.’
- 2nd International Conference on Pharmaceutics & Novel Drug Delivery Systems, February 20-22, 2012; San Francisco, US with a theme ‘Cutting edge technologies in Pharmaceutics & Strategies of Drug Delivery.’
Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs
- International Conference and Exhibition on Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs, September 6-7, 2011; Baltimore, US with a theme ‘Advancements in Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs.’
Biosimilars
- International Conference and Exhibition on Biowaivers and Biosimilars, September 10-12, 2012; San Antonio, US with a theme ‘A Synergistic Approach towards Biowaivers & Biosimilars.’
Pharmacovigilence
- International Conference and Exhibition on Pharmacovigilence and Clinical Trials, October 1-3, 2012; Chicago, US with a theme ‘Safer Drugs and Good Clinical Practice.’
What are the criteria set by you to select speakers for the pharma conferences?
Criteria of speaker selection are important to convey the quality level and spectrum of learning the attendees expect. OMICS Group Conferences build a platform for the interaction between the pharma industry experts/professionals, academic delegates (professors/scientists from research organisation or universities), and students; and collaborations between the academia and industry and also between the industries/ companies. Therefore, it’s important to look at both the type of speaker, their reputation when speaking at our conferences and their current personal standing in the field.
But OMICS Group majorly concentrates on industry speakers (especially from regulatory agencies like US FDA, CDSCO, etc) which help to drive more academicians’s, graduates, delegates from other industries.
Does pharma industry/ industry experts play any role in deciding the theme for your pharma conferences? If yes, how?
Yes. OMICS Group Conferences, especially for pharma conferences have strong Organising Committee Members (OCM) from both academia and industry. And before taking every step for our conferences, approval is needed from the OCM.
According to you, what are the current challenges for the Indian pharma industry? Also, what are the common/shared challenges for the Indian and global pharma industry?
Current challenges for the Indian pharma industry are that domestic formulations market growth is slowing down.
Also due to cheap imports, domestic bulk drugs industry is facing intense competition. Competitive rivalry of prices between regional and local pharma companies is also driving down prices, exerting pressure on margins.
MNC pharma companies are getting more aggressive at protecting their patents and defending their market share after patent expiry.
The global pharma industry, especially the Indian pharma industry, today is facing two major challenges, to develop and utilise scientific knowledge to derive new drugs and to do it at an affordable cost.
What are the future plans of OMICS for the Indian pharma industry?
Research in science is important, as it leads to ‘progress’ in education, which further leads to ‘progress in science’ and ultimately accelerating scientific discoveries and technological innovations. Scientists, researchers, academicians, innovators, industry professionals, scholars and students are constantly in need of information that will benefit their research. OMICS Group Conferences and OMICS Publishing Group provide an open-arena where cutting-edge research ideas and latest happenings in the fields of medicine and science especially pharma sciences are exhibited, which in turn foster new research directions and approaches.
OMICS Group would like to create a platform for Indian pharma industry having vast availability of talented and skilled scientific manpower; to make scientific and business collaborations with all the pharma industries /companies globally with an aim and vision of making INDIA as top player in global pharma industry.
OMICS Group is playing an important role in making healthcare and scientific information open access by running 250 open access journals with the support from 20,000 well qualified scientists as editorial board members. Out of 250 journals, around 25 journals comes under pharma sciences, these are monitored by around 1,500 well qualified scientists as an editorial team. Quality peer reviewed articles published in these journals will be useful to the Indian pharma academics, as well as industry as these are freely available on the web.
A renaissance of scientific discoveries and technological innovations has begun, and OMICS Group is proud to be the one accelerating it.
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