The progress in new drug approvals for infective disease of poverty (IDOP) in India

The global burden for infectious disease remains high in the developing and underdeveloped countries like Sub-Sahara Africa, South–East Asia and Latin America. Among them, the three major contributors of mortality and morbidity are HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria which along with neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are collectively known as “infectious diseases of poverty” (IDoP). There is the strong pressing need for developing new drug molecules for eradication of these diseases. We did a cross-sectional study as per the STROBE guidelines to compare the disease burden and new drug approved for IDoP in India. The findings of this study show that new drugs approvals in India has restricted to the non-communicable diseases only.  This mismatch becomes even more apparent for communicable diseases included under IDOP which had only 2.7% share among the total new drug approved during year 2000 to 2017 and only half of them were true innovator drugs. This shows the urgent need to allocate research resources in sync with the existing burden of disease in India and to promote research and development for diseases which affect poor people of country and are neglected by the world.