Dr. Kiran Marthak, Director Veeda was the Member of the Program Committee and also in charge of the session on Orphan Drug, AIDS Vaccine and Biophrmaceuticals at the 4th Annual Dia Conference held from 16-18 November, 2009 at The Sheraton New Delhi.

Drug Information Association Inc. organizes the conferences every year not only in USA and Europe but now in important destinations like India, China, Brazil and Russia. In India it is being organized since 4 years. It is an annual event and this year the theme of the conference was ‘Scientific and Regulatory Advances across Borders’. There was also a workshop on Medical Devices, Medical and Regulatory writing, and on Clinical Trials Design on the first 2 days of the event.

Mr. Ashok Kumar, Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals, Government of India informed while inaugurating the conference “that they are strongly encouraging Clinical Research in India and to support this Indian Government is carrying out amendments in their laws”.

The topics covered were on Pediatric clinical trials, Next generation Pharmacovigillance, which included Safety update from the International Conference on Harmonisation. Dr. Munish Mehra spoke about maximizing the investigators potential while Surendra Das covered importance of strong study feasibility process accurate site selection and patients enrolment strategies.

There was a Panel discussion about latest in Regulatory Affairs. The participants were from US-FDA, European Union and M.H.R.A. It also covered about requirement in Animal Toxicology and Biometrics. “This was one of the most interesting Panel discussions” said Dr Marthak.

The conference also covered the topic on Orphan Drug and how to get the benefits out of it, the AIDS vaccine and how India can leverage out of Biosimilar trials and also on strategic-tie-ups for Drug Discovery activities.

The next conference will be held in Bangalore.