KARACHI: The International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) at Karachi University (KU) has recently signed an agreement with a leading Chinese pharmaceutical company under which the latter would conduct drug clinical trials at the KU facility.

The agreement was signed by Dr Xiaochun Chen, director general, Health and Family Planning Commission of Hunan Province, China, and ICCBS director Prof M. Iqbal Choudhary.

According to a press statement released on Monday, the agreement signing between Hunan Anbang Pharmaceutical Company (HAPC) and ICCBS also marked the launching of clinical trials on a capsule at the Centre for Bioequivalence Studies and Clinical Research, part of Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research.

“The State Food and Drug Administration of China (SFDA) has approved HAPC’s project ‘Yinhuang Qingfei Capsule’. Later, the same drug could be marketed in Pakistan and help tackle many illnesses here. The mechanism would help Pakistanis to have easy and cheap access to Chinese medicines now,” a press release said.

Speaking at the ceremony, Prof Choudhary said the agreement was aimed at promoting scientific and cultural cooperation between the two countries.

“Our laboratories have the capability to develop and validate analytical methods for a variety of drug substances and metabolites using sophisticated high-throughput technologies,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2018