Drug development in LMICs: could the emerging Indian model usher the southeast Asian region?

Abstract

Low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) of southeast Asia are passing through a similar phase as India in their tryst with the development of novel drugs. They are beginning to break away from their dependency on the institutions of our developed world. Over the past few years, Tata Memorial Centre—India's premier cancer centre—has shown the tenacity to develop drugs within the national frontiers. By collaborating with the domestic pharmaceutical industries, it has been able to have a steady pipeline of drugs under development, with two of them receiving marketing authorization recently. Lately, Indonesia and Vietnam have also shown an inclination towards public-private partnerships for similar motives. However, due to prolonged innovative stagnation, the entire drug development machinery faces challenges stretching all the way from arranging funds to persuading regulatory bodies. In this Viewpoint, we have tried to address a few of those issues and their potential solutions, with the intention to share our own experience which might be useful to other LMICs in connecting some adamant dots.