By Hamid Khan Wazir
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Keeping in view the gravity of the situation, the Federal Minister for Science and Technology Shibli Faraz has stressed the need for vaccine development in order to meet local needs as well as to use it for export purpose.
While chairing a meeting on human vaccine development here at the COMSTECH secretariat on Wednesday, Shibli Faraz said that we should be ready for future challenges and the federal government will extend all sorts of support in this regard.
The meeting was attended by representatives from private sector leading pharmaceutical companies of Pakistan including Searle Pakistan Ltd, Ferozesons Laboratories, Amson Vaccines and Pharma, and Getz Pharma (Pvt). Ltd, Focus and Rulz Pharmaceuticals (Pvt.) Limited.
In addition, senior officials and experts of premier R&D institutions of Pakistan i.e., National Institute of Health (NIH), International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, University of Karachi, National Center for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, Centre Excellence for Molecular Biology, University of Punjab were present in the meeting.
Detailed discussion was carried out for the enabling role of the government of Pakistan. Pharmaceutical companies explained in depth the bottlenecks faced by the industries to stay abreast with changes in the manufacturing of vaccines and biologics.
The Minister for Science and Technology entrusted the responsibility to COMSTECH and NIH for preparing a position paper to facilitate the industries and create sustainable linkage between industry and R & D institutions of Pakistan.
Earlier, in the introductory remarks, the Coordinator-General COMSTECH Professor Dr. M. Iqbal Chaudhary welcomed the participants and said that it is our national responsibility to use our capabilities to help in the development of human vaccine.
Professor Iqbal Chaudhary assured that COMSTECH would provide every sort of possible support in this regard.
