AFTER a long wait it was announced last week that the National Pharmaceutical Blueprint was to be submitted to the Prime Minister before being launched.
The blueprint prepared by the Malaysia Industry-Government Group for High Technology or Might is expected to chart the growth of the pharmaceutical industry in the next century.
Despite being as old as medicine, the field of pharmacy appears to be less prominent and developed in this country. Pharmacy is essentially the art and science of preparing, dispensing and monitoring the effectiveness of medicines.
It has a long history indeed as the earliest literature relating to it can be found in the Sumerian and Babylonian clay tablets written almost four millennia ago.
Concomitantly, in Egypt, unlike the Mesopotamian healthcare providers who used medicines for non-invasive therapy, pharmacy practice was more along surgical lines.
The development of pharmacy as a form of therapy continued during the Greek civilisation.
Pharmacy during the Islamic civilisation received its strongest impulse through the translations of Materia Medica written by the great Greek pharmacologists Dioscurides some time around 77 AD.
But in Islam, pharmacy became far more highly developed than it was among the Greeks. In fact for the first time pharmacy was established as a separate and distinct profession.
Pharmacy education was given great importance. Literatures on pharmacy were published not only to guide the work of pharmacists but also to facilitate examination on pharmacy practice.
Apothecaries and dispensaries supplying medicines were set up for the first time.
Muslim scientists not only contributed to the introduction of new medicinal substances and compound remedies, but also new equipment for the pharmaceutical industry.
Many of the techniques used in drug production were actually part of the realm of alchemy.
The Arabic word al-kimiya, from which we derive the word alchemy, was used for both chemistry and alchemy, and no clear distinction was made between the two activities.
In the 12th century, pharmacy like many other sciences in the Muslim world began to loose its fervour.
Not long after, the incursions of the Mongols essentially put an end to scientific endeavours of Muslims.
It was then the time for the Europeans to procure the torch of civilisation from the Muslims.
Many Latin works on pharmacy were largely dependent on the Islamic texts.
The first European Pharmacopoeia produced in 1499 AD contains materials from the Islamic treatises on the preservation and compounding of drugs, prescriptions, practice of pharmacy and a list of useful drugs.
Pharmacy has come a long way since then. Today’s pharmaceutical business is incredibly huge indeed.
However, it is very much a one-sided affair. The developed nations sell, the rest of the world buys.
The defining factor for this imbalance is research and development.
R&D is the bloodlife of the pharmaceutical industry. Companies must have a constant flow of new products coming through the pipeline in order to compete and survive.
However, it is clear that the cost of R&D is spiralling almost out of control. Even large transnational pharmaceutical companies are accepting the fact that they cannot do all their R&D in-house.
This must have been one of the major considerations of decision-makers that led to a spate of mergers of mega pharmaceutical companies in the last few years.
Apart from mergers these companies have also started forging strategic alliances, either with the academia or other smaller entrepreneur-driven research laboratories, mostly in the biotechnology sector. This move is inevitable. It is one of the best options available to enhance the size and breadth of the R&D effort.
The logic is pretty simple. There are many more scientists working outside a company than within it.
The whole process of drug development from discovery to registration requires the involvement of a wide range of disciplines.
Links must be established with groups that have the expertise in platform technologies that is, areas that provide the scientific input into drug discovery such as genomics, medicinal chemistry and screening.
We are certainly not naive to think that our country can compete with the transnational pharmaceutical companies. But we must find ways to at least contribute more positively to the global pharmaceutical industry.
We are already doing it in the information technology arena. The Multimedia Super Corridor is our gift to the world. We are also beginning to court the aerospace industry. Why not seriously venture into the pharmaceutical industry then?
Thus the agenda of the soon-to-be set up Malaysian Pharmaceutical Development Council can perhaps mirror those of the National IT Council which has successfully helped charter the course for Malaysia’s IT pursuit.
To be fair to the pharmaceutical companies operating on the local scene, some of them have already established partnerships with the academia and research institutions. But hopefully the National Pharmaceutical Blueprint will provide the impetus to boost the industry to greater heights.