Future-proofing Pharmacy of the World

The world witnessed India’s quest to combat COVID-19 not just strategically, economically, socially and with regard to health provisions and hospitality, but also bio-technologically as it came up with many successful vaccines. This is no mean feat for a country which had been considered very poor in the domain of research, especially bio-technology and medicine. Now, it seems it is a different world out here. Today, PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the two-day Bio-Tech Startup Expo 2022 being held in New Delhi. Further, India recently saw inauguration of the National Facility for Gene Function in Health and Disease (NFGFHD) in Pune. In Parallel, North India’s first biotech park was inaugurated in J&K’s Kathua along with the launch of a Single National Portal For Biotech Startups by Union Minister of State For Science and Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh. In a recent development, IISC scientists have also designed a new class of artificial peptides or miniproteins that they say can render viruses like SARS-CoV-2 inactive. With such a motivated and encouraging developments, India is beaming with bio-technological breakthroughs, slowly forming a favorable ecosystem for both research and innovation in the country.

Prospects are galore for the sector as it is one of the most demand driven sectors. The campaigns for ease of living in India over the years, have opened up new possibilities for the biotech sector. The developments in health, agriculture, energy, natural farming, bio-fortified seeds are creating new avenues for it. However, we still need to work on the efficiency and productivity and cost-effectiveness of agriculture, nutritional security, molecular medicine, environmentally sustainable technologies, scientific and technological empowerment of human resource, a strong infrastructure for research and commercialization, the relevant knowledge base, nurturing the leads of potential utility and bringing the bio-products to the market place to take the sector to new heights.

Five big reasons why India is being considered a land of opportunities in the field of biotech are- its diverse population and diverse climatic zones, talented human capital pool, increasing efforts for ease of doing business, the demand for bio-products and the track record of its success. Furthermore, to transcend government-centric approach, the Centre is encouraging a culture of providing new enabling interfaces. Platforms like BIRAC are being strengthened. The government, through new institutions, is bringing together the best minds of the industry on a single platform. Trust in the skill and innovation of India’s IT professionals in the world is at new heights. The country gets new breakthroughs from research and academia, with the industry helping in what is a real world view and the government providing the necessary policy environment and necessary infrastructure.

The encouraging initiatives being continuously taken by India for the sector, has manifested in creating robust startup ecosystem in biotech sector also. In the last 8 years, the number of biotech start-ups in the country has increased to more than five thousand. While, the total number of startups of all kinds, has risen to 70 thousand from a few hundreds in last 8 years (operating in about 60 different industries). This way every 14th startup operates in the bio technology sector with more than 1100 such biotech startups emerging last year itself. The shift of talent towards the sector induces a great deal of investment, resulting in the number of investors being risen by 9 times and biotech incubators and funding for them being increased by 7 times. The number of biotech incubators has increased from 6 in 2014 to 75 now. Biotech products have also increased from 10 to more than 700 today.

A frontline area of science with immense potential for the benefit of the human kind, biotechnology sector is helping to heal the world by harnessing nature’s unfathomable potential and people’s very complex genetic makeup. By reducing rates of infectious disease, it is saving millions of lives and changing the odds of life-threatening conditions by tailoring treatments to minimize the health risks and side effects by creating more precise tools. These are the reasons why India’s bio-economy has grown 8 times in the last 8 years and from 10 billion dollar to 80 billion dollar. More importantly, India is not too far from reaching the league of top-10 countries in Biotech’s global ecosystem.

Holistic needs of post-pandemic Healthcare

Covid-19, which originated from one corner of the world and devastated the ’normal’ ways of the entire planet by taking lives, halting economic activities and causing traumatic effects to body and mind with extreme aftermaths. With that, ‘What is Health and how to care for it’, has become a fundamental query in everyone’s mind. Indian philosophy of Pancha Kosha provides an appropriate framework towards it. The Upanishads state that our apparent reality or prakriti comprises of five different extensions, starting from the closely packed physical body, annamaya kosha(food sheath) pranamaya kosha(vital air sheath), and evolving gradually to more subtle and sublime levels of manomaya kosha(mind sheath), vigyanmaya kosha(intellect sheath) and anandmaya kosha(bliss sheath), all being supported by the absolute reality or Atman. The concept of Pancha Kosha or five cardinal layers or sheaths was elucidated in many sacred Ancient Hindu texts like Taittiriya Upanishad, Vivekacudamani and Panchadasi. Healthcare and well-being as we understand in modern societal setup is taking care of the needs of the first three sheaths and Income, employment, education, food security, housing, transportation, safety, and social support are all important factors to it. Additionally, trauma or adverse childhood experiences may have long-term effects on health and well-being.

Another framework used often to understand these needs of modern living is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Abraham Maslow is said to have developed the concept of five stages of needs that motivate human behavior. The five stages in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in order from lowest to highest level include physiological, safety, social (love and belonging), esteem, and self-actualization, where first two levels of need are considered basic needs, which are based on the need for survival and safety. The third stage, social stage is based on psychological or emotional needs, which includes interpersonal relationships. In post-pandemic world, Social Needs are very vital to health and well-being of individuals and policy makers are recognising the importance of considering the level of fulfilled social needs in planning the policy interventions.

In pursuit of socialization which invariably leads to emotional well-being of an individual and society at large, the present dispensation at the Centre is striving hard to bring in transformative changes in how an individual should be treated where all dimensions of life is well taken care of. Ayurveda and Naturopathy are the holistic answers to it, which bring harmony into one’s life by striking a beautiful balance among people, society and nature.

In fact, Ayurveda has turned into a ‘slice of life’ from a ‘science of life’ with its ability to heal from within and for all. The ever increasing importance of Ayurveda has put it in the centre of millions of lives’ in India and across the globe. This oldest healing method is based on the science of life. Ayurvedic practices have become truly global with its drugs being used as food supplements in USA, EU, Japan and other countries. Many physicians practice Ayurveda in many parts of the world like USA, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, South Africa, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Netherlands, Russia, UK, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Sri Lanka among others.

Similarly, Naturopathy also relies upon nature and inherent power of human body and mind. This most ancient health care mechanism has a holistic approach to human wellness and healthy living. Relying on the healing power of nature, Naturopathy stimulates the human body’s ability to heal itself with different kinds of therapies like diet therapy, fasting therapy, mud therapy, hydrotherapy, masso (massage) therapy, acupressure, chromo therapy, air therapy, magnet therapy. Naturopathy successfully treats all aspects of the human body like mental, physical, social and spiritual, believing that performing a prayer based on one’s spiritual faith is also an important part of treatment.

Imagining Health Services in Metaverse

Benefits of Meditation are innumerable and it surely is hot topic in fight against mental stress and illness induced during pandemic. Group meditation is considered even more helpful, especially for beginners, as it helps in garnering feedback and developing the habit. Digital media allowed virtual sessions and on-screen presence to overcome the barriers of physical meetings. Taking a cue from gaming world, an encounter in the virtual world of metaverse can add all together new dimensions to these intensely personal experiences, hitherto available only in physical reality.

First usage of the term metaverse came in Snow Crash, a 1992 novel by Neal Stephenson. This was used by him to describe the successor of the Internet, a vision of how a virtual reality–based Internet might evolve in the near future. This concept in the novel along with William Gibson’s Neuromancer, which describes a virtual reality dataspace called the matrix, created a genre of literature in itself which went on to changing the gaming industry. With availability of Virtual Reality(VR), Augmented Reality(AR), Brain-Computer Interfaces(BCI), AI/ML tools explosion, big data and quantum computing, these imagined concepts are now ripe to change the way we play, meet and even remain healthy.

Not just video calls, but AR has also been actively used to impart training to COVID-19 respondents. VR has also been used now by medical education institutions as well as mental health experts for treating post-traumatic stress (PTS). Metaverse is likely to build on these experiences for treatment of various brain issues like Phobia, anxiety, delusions etc. Treatment of addiction to VR using metaverse is certainly an interesting proposition.

Metaverse holds huge potential for the domain of medical education, training as well as diagnostics part of a treatment. In a lab setting, creating human body via AR can make the examination of anatomy altogether a different experience. Usage of electrodes along with VR headset to real-time provision of body vitals to Metaverse can remove the need of travel and related expenses .

As a concept, metaverse has already started to incorporate Web3 technology enabled through blockchain technology (like NFTs and Cryptos). It will soon be replacing phones and desktops as the central platforms of our daily lives. Hence, it is not difficult to predict that the future metaverse would be very similar to real world in many aspects and even replace real-world activities like gaming, working or even hanging out. The strong sense of mutual presence will transform the doctor-patient relationship in unimaginable ways.

Samir Kumar – Head PBNS

WHO to what of Tradition of Ayurveda

Is Ayurveda going to be the next export item to the world after Yoga? Ayurvedic practices are known to almost every Indian, believer or not, and it is from ancient Vedas. There always have been ask of scientific proof, objective evidence gathering, for ‘accepting’ it as modern scientific enterprise. This challenge has been taken head on since setup of AYUSH Ministry. Towards this end, few years back an agreement was signed with the United States to collaborate in research to establish a role for Ayurveda and other ancient forms of medicine in the modern world. And, now comes WHO’s first Centre for traditional medicine in Gujarat, India.

Traditional medicine as what defined by WHO means, “the sum total of the knowledge, skills and practices on the basis of the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health, as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illnesses.”

The establishment of the first and global out-posted Centre for traditional medicine in India sufficiently reflects the fact that the traditional medicines and wellness practices of India are very popular globally and this WHO Centre bound to focus on greater dissemination of ancient wisdom with modern scientific and technological research perspective at a global platform will go a long way in enhancing wellness in the society. According to the WHO data, around 80% of the world’s population is estimated to use traditional medicine to cater the world’s health-care need.

As the part of WHO’s overall traditional medicines strategy, this center will position AYUSH systems across the globe and provide leadership on global health matters pertaining to traditional medicine. It will ensure quality, safety, efficacy, accessibility and rational use of traditional medicine. It will also develop norms, standards, and guidelines in relevant technical areas, tools and methodologies for collecting data undertaking analytics, and assess impact.

India has made significant progress in the traditional medicine sector both at organisational level and gaining large scale public acceptance. And with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ayurveda, Yoga and other systems became an invaluable resource for the entire world in dealing the Covid-19 difficulties due to its holistic approach towards health and disease.