A CyberMedia Publication | www.BioSpectrumAsia.com | July 31, 2013 | BioSpectrum 3

BioContent

BioNews ...................................06

BioPolicy ...................................26

BioFund .......................................27

BioServices ..................28

BioEnabler ........................32

BioContent

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Vol 8; Issue 14; July 31, 2013

CoverStory 9

New Zealand strives for connected healthcare

BioTalk

Mr Charung Muengchanadirector, National Vaccine Institute, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand

24 BioResearch

Dr Chandra Viswanathan

30Taking stem cell to the masses

India’s GEAC a toothless tiger

Reconstitution of the defunct Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has attracted mixed reactions from the biotech industry of India. While some see it as a welcome move, that can streamline the clearance procedure for the GM crops in the country, some other believe that it will not make any difference to the industry, and that the system needs to be revamped

BioAnalysis 18

Pharma MNCs faceroadblocks in Asian markets

BioSpecial 12

BioProduct ............................34

BioPeople .....................................35

BioEvent .........................................36

BioBuzz ...............................................38

BioEdit ....................................................04

A CyberMedia Publication | www.BioSpectrumAsia.com | July 31, 2013 | BioSpectrum 9

India’s GEAC a toothless tigerReconstitution of the defunct Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has attracted mixed reactions from the biotech industry of India. While some see it as a welcome move, that can streamline the clearance procedure for the GM crops in the country, some other believe that it will not make any difference to the industry, and that the system needs to be revamped

Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests has reconstituted the defunct Genetic Engi-neering Appraisal Committee

(GEAC). Most of the industry repre-sentatives believe that GEAC is very important for the timely clearances of the GM crops for field trials. Howev-er, some others feel that mere clear-ance for conducting field trials by a regulatory body is of no great help, as it has to be followed by the approvals from the state governments.

Reacting to this, Dr N Seetharama, executive director, Association of Biotechnology led Enterprises-Agri-culture Group (ABLE-AG) says, “It is surely a right decision that has come at the right time. The vacuum created in between had to be filled as soon as possible.”

Sharing her views, Dr Usha Zehr Bar-wale, chief technology officer, Mahyco says, “The GEAC certainly is very im-portant for all of us to get clearances for GM crop trials. Therefore, it is

a welcome move as there is a lot on stake for the agribiotech companies. ”

“It is good news and will bring cheer to the industry. The void created by the non-functional GEAC will have to be filled and cases that need attention to be addressed as soon as possible,” adds Dr Seetharam Annadana, traits development and vegetable R&D management lead, Syngenta South Asia.

However, some in the industry feel that the regulatory structure, as well as the GEAC as a body, needs to be revamped. Dr S R Rao, senior advi-sor, Department of Biotechnology, said that this is a routine process of reconstitution and nothing can be read into it. “The committee func-tioning will remain as it was men-tioned earlier,” he says. Dr Rao feels that making Biotechnology Regula-tory Authority of India (BRAI) bill in itself was a marathon test and agrees that sustainable strategy is very much required for the agribiotech sector.

CoverStory

A CyberMedia Publication | www.BioSpectrumAsia.com | July 31, 2013 | BioSpectrum 15

Director of National Health IT Board, New Zea-land, Mr Graeme Osbourne, who also led the establishment of National Health IT Board as executive chair, and supervised the develop-

ment and introduction of National Health IT Plan, speaks to BioSpectrum about the new healthcare system.

What is the need of a connected healthcare plan? How will it benefit patients?Mr Osbourne: Our objective is to work towards a fu-ture where health professionals will be able to access and share health information online. This indicates that pa-tients would receive better care because their healthcare providers would have complete access to their medical history, enabling the physicians to take better treatment decisions. Also, through this network, even the individu-als will have access to their complete health information. We also guide district health boards in the process of choosing IT vendors for the project.

What are the challenges in implementing IT solutions at district level?Mr Osbourne: The biggest challenge is that clinicians are not willing to share information with each other, so it becomes difficult to instigate new ideas, thoughts or plans consistently. We are spending a lot of time in find-ing hospitals that can partner with us and communicate further with clinics and hospitals’ boards to implement the solution. Another challenge is lack of appropriate funding, and hence, we are working with lot of domestic as well as international ICT companies in New Zealand. We are insisting on software solutions that can be easily implemented at district level. And the third challenge is ensuring a system that is easy enough to get implemented across the hospitals and clinics.

Is Electronic Health Record the most critical aspect of this whole interconnected healthcare system?Mr Osbourne: When we started this project in 2010, we had made it clear that electronic health record (EHR) system is not the only element that the healthcare com-

munity has to think of. We are looking at an ecosystem of shared information so that people can have the choice of knowing about their treatment and physicians can con-sider their patients as aware. In an EHR, a physician can see the history of the patient, but we are looking at a sys-tem that helps patient and physicians to decide the best treatment possible.

If I am a clinician and I am seeing a patient for a first time, it is of great help to me to see a patient past records, but it should also make you decide what are the things you want to consider as individuals, and what are the things that a patient is doing that are non-medical and is helping him.

What are the concerns of individuals about sharing their private information?Mr Osbourne: New Zealand has mixed population, where there are conservative as well as liberal thinkers, on sharing their health information. New Zealand has legislation guidelines that clearly indicate that patient information is owned by the patient and before sharing with doctors or clinicians, their consent is mandatory. Community understanding and support of the appropri-ate use of the available information is very critical for the effective utilization of the resources. BS

An ecosystem of shared medical information

Interview

Mr Graeme Osbourne,Director, National Health IT Board, New Zealand

BioSpecial

AMRITA TEJASVI

The author was hosted in New Zealand by the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise

16 BioSpectrum | July 31, 2013 | www.BioSpectrumAsia.com | A CyberMedia Publication

Innovation spurs in New Zealand

The connected health strategy has opened new avenues for IT solution and technology provid-ers to bring innovation that matches the vision of New Zealand future healthcare outlook. Med-

ical devices and technology companies, and mobile ap-plication providers are thinking out of the box to develop products/solutions that can make a patient self empow-ered and more managed with less dependency on health-care professionals.

New Zealand’s Orion Healthcare is providing health information exchange and healthcare integration solu-tions that help to connect clinicians and patients. Orion Healthcare has developed easy-to-use web-based inter-face solution that provides a single unified view of patient data across and between healthcare organizations, there-by, connecting hospital or health system with public or private clinics across geography.

Orion Health’s Health Information Exchange (HIE) so-lution facilitates patient-centric care and enables pro-vider organizations and clinical communities to coordi-nate care and securely share complete patient records. It further lowers costs by reducing and/or eliminating duplicate tests, procedures and rework with a better management of patients’ records. Orion has also devel-oped single best patient record system that improves clinical decision-making, care quality and outcomes by enabling users to view all healthcare acts associated with each patient and improve treatment decisions based on viewing a patient’s related medications, clinical condi-tions, and allergies.

Following New Zealand’s strategy for long term health-care policy, software solution provider HSA Global has developed Collaborative Care Management Solution (CCM), which is an integrated electronic health record and clinical case management solution that enables healthcare organizations to improve client care.

CCMS is used by healthcare provider organizations to manage long term conditions and chronic disease and links clients, care providers, service managers and fund providers. CCMS supports the clinical and administra-tive processes to manage registration, admission, assess-ment, care planning, scheduling, clinical documentation, discharge and transfer of the patients.

Mobile health managementNew Zealand-based Vensa Health has developed mobile phone platform called mHealth+3, that automates and manages appointment reminders for patients. Vensa mHealth+ interfaces with multiple hospital health in-formation system to provide a single communication platform and automate process of appointment remind-ers for all the outpatient clinics via electronic messaging with patients via two-way text messaging, mobile sites and emails. mHealth+ also allows general practitioners, nurses and admin staff to send appointment reminders, test result alerts and recalls for services through mobile text-messaging.

Leveraging on providing telecare and telehealth solu-tions, Chiptech is developing and producing technology designed to support aging population for self health man-agement. Chiptech is producing a range of innovative, re-liable and intelligent products to monitor peoples’ well-ness in their homes. Chiptech has developed telehealth device called Health Check that conditions specific ques-tion session with patients that occurs at a set time every day and records readings taken on home health monitor-ing devices for various diseases such as diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure, blood pressure and medication reminders. BS

BioSpecial

Medical devices and technology companies, and mobile application providers are thinking out-of-the-box to develop products and solutions to make patients self empowered and less dependent on healthcare professionals

AMRITA TEJASVI

The author was hosted in New Zealand by the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise

24 BioSpectrum | July 31, 2013 | www.BioSpectrumAsia.com | A CyberMedia Publication

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Thailand has nearly 520,000 people living with HIV and AIDS (aged between five and 49), and the country has the highest adult

HIV prevalence in South East Asia region. Public health ministry of Thailand has reported that more than 70,000 people were infected with dengue virus in 2012, and the spread of tropical disease is suspected to go higher in 2013. Thailand is on the radar of high prevalence of in-fluenza virus as well. Amidst the high risk of disease out-break in the country, Thailand is putting efforts towards developing a robust immunization program as a tool to handle any forthcoming pandemic.

Its national vaccine committee aims to protect the coun-try against preventable diseases by planning and recom-mending need for building human resources, infrastruc-ture development and domestic production of vaccines for dengue, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, mumps, measles, encephalitis, polio, hepatitis B, and tuberculosis. Howev-er, the road to achieve self-sufficiency in vaccine develop-ment has been full of challenges and the country imports almost 80 percent of its vaccines from foreign players.

In his recent visit to Singapore during the 7th World Vac-cine Congress, Mr Charung Muengchana, director, Na-tional Vaccine Institute, Ministry of Public Health, Thai-

land, shared with BioSpectrum the challenges in vaccine development in the country and a possible roadmap for disease prevention in Thailand.

What is Thailand’s major concern with respect to public health and disease control? Mr Muengchana: Thailand is stressing more on the preventive healthcare system as compared to the curative system, in order to keep the burden off for future public health management. While curative approach demands immediate actions and steps, preventive healthcare calls for long term planning and strategies.

Due to the current prevalence of diseases, preventive healthcare may not appear as an immediate strategy to sustain a disease free environment for future, but in the long run it eases off the burden from the government. However, most of the healthcare budget is directed to-wards handling immediate disease control and thus, plans for disease prevention takes a backstage. Thailand has a national health security scheme that ensures uni-versal health coverage, but most of its focus is on control-ling immediate disease burden.

How serious is Thailand about its vaccination programs? Has the country progressed to becoming self-reliant in vaccines?

‘Thailand needs robust vaccine alliances’

Mr Charung Muengchanadirector, National Vaccine Institute, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand

Interview

BioTalk