Philippine Council for Health Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (PCHRD-DOST) celebrated its 29th year anniversary with the theme “Challenges and Innovations in Local Health Technologies” at the Hyatt Hotel and Casino Manila last March 18, 2011.
In his opening message, DOST Secretary Mario G. Montejo expressed his appreciation on PCHRD’s anniversary theme, “I am pleased to note that your anniversary theme this year focuses on local health technologies, which is aligned with the present administration’s advocacy. We believe in our people. We believe that local technology works.”
He further emphasized, “We will be prioritizing and supporting the development of affordable diagnostic kits, quality pharmaceutical products using our local resources and the development of traditional Filipino medicine…But we need to work together as a purpose driven team.”
Assistant Secretary Nemesio T. Gako of the Department of Health (DOH) delivered Secretary Enrique T. Ona’s message for the occasion. In his message, Sec. Ona pointed out that challenges and opportunities for technology innovation and health research abound in two areas of the Universal Health Care’s (UHC) strategic thrusts — ensuring access and quality in health facilities and attainment of health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
“The challenge is to scale up with more resources (human), funding and support systems or infrastructures especially in far-flung areas. Innovations in drugs and vaccines to support treatment interventions for our key MDG-identified diseases such as HIV, Malaria, and TB are resource-heavy and equally compete for our scarce health budget.” he said.
Keynote speaker Dr. Reynaldo L. Garcia, Professor from the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the University of the Philippines Diliman, identified the challenges on diversifying drug discovery programs in the country.
“First, we always end up with drug-like compounds and then we don’t pursue them further. Second, researchers keep taking on “new projects” all the time and we never pursue our initial results. The third challenge is we don’t have expertise in lead optimization and we don’t have medicinal chemists.” he said.
As a take home message to the participants, Dr. Garcia stressed, “We need to diversify and scale up. We should be aware that the attrition rate is very high and many of the things we are working on right now are going to fail. The other thing is to plan what to do next, because obviously we would have drug candidates sooner than later and we have to know what to do with them. We should also strategize our drug discovery approach. We should consider partnering; it is about sharing the risk. Lastly, it is important to have a change in mindset. Be more innovative and be more commercial.”
In the panel discussion, experts highlighted the drug development situation in the Philippines in terms of clinical research, ethics, clinical trials regulation, and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). The panelists included Ms. Linda Grace Mendoza, President of the Philippine Clinical Research Professionals, Inc., Dr. Cecilia V. Tomas, Chair of the Philippine Health Research Ethics Board (PHREB) Subcommittee on Accreditation, Dr. Suzette Lazo, Director IV of the Food and Drug Administration, and Mr. Epifanio Rey Evasco, Director IV of the Bureau of Patents, Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.
The panel discussion was followed by two breakout sessions covering PCHRD-supported researches on infectious and non-infectious diseases. Session 1 tackled Dengue and Leptospirosis while Session 2 focused on Aging and Memory and Renal Disease. Rachel Ann Doreen D. Nadal, PCHRD
