9 pharmacy students awarded Schott Fiolax Scholarship

In the second year of Schott Fiolax Scholarship Programme, Schott awarded nine scholarships to meritorious students pursuing bachelors (B. Pharmacy) and masters (M. Pharmacy) degrees in pharmacy in Mumbai and Gujarat. Seven B. Pharmacy students-- Rachana Subhash Kelkar, Deepika Ratanlal Patel, Rehman Irfan Jirait, Rupali N. Madapura, Vrishali Salian, Malvika Rangu Chandnani and Deep Raithatha, and two M. Pharmacy students-- Shachi Vipulkumar Bheda and Khushboo Patel were awarded gift cheques of Rs. 25000/-each by Sundeep Prabhu, vice president sales and marketing, Schott Glass India Pvt. Ltd during a special award ceremony. The winners have also been offered an exclusive tour of Schott Glass India’s pharmaceutical tubing plant in Jambusar district, Gujarat. After the successful launch of the scholarship programme last year wherein Schott awarded financial aid of Rs. 25,000 each to six candidates from Mumbai, the number of recipients was increased to nine. “Due to a very encouraging response from students and faculty, we decided to expand the programme both geographically and in number of students supported. We feel proud that a second time in a row, this year, most scholarships have been bagged by young women pursuing B. Pharmacy and M. Pharmacy,” said Prabhu. “With the increased demand for patient services and the growing number of prescriptions filled each year in India, we feel it is our responsibility to recognize the outstanding academic performance, dedicated commitment and community service of the most promising pharmacists of India,” Prabhu shared. “We feel honoured to encourage qualified individuals to fulfill open positions in the field of pharmacy and to leverage their skills during their academic progression through this programme.” The process of selecting candidates for the Schott Fiolax Scholarship Programme 2016 was completed in December 2015, in which nine meritorious students were shortlisted from various colleges in Mumbai and Gujarat. The screening process took a total of six months to complete, with more than 100 applicants who were able to clear the challenging eligibility criteria of passing 2nd year with more than 70 percent in case of B. Pharmacy students and on the basis of outstanding research for M. Pharmacy students. SOURCE: PHARMABIZ

Free Drug Donation Pharmacy Opens in California

Allison Gilchrist, Associate Editor

Published Online: Wednesday, February 24, 2016

California’s first surplus prescription medication program recently opened its doors. 

 

Better Health Pharmacy is dedicated to collecting and dispensing unused, unopened, and unexpired medications from state-regulated facilities to patients for free. 

 

Up until now, these drug donation services have been housed in the Santa Clara Public Health Department Pharmacy. The program has dispensed more than 8700 prescriptions and generated a savings of more than $400,000 since the initiative began in 2015. 

 

From the program’s new home in San Jose, California, patients in need will be able to obtain their prescriptions at no cost and without co-pays. 

 

Drug donation pharmacies are a practical response to the increasing need for free or low-cost medications. Nearly 23% of US adults report missing or skipping prescriptions altogether solely because of cost.

 

In a press release, Pharmacist-in-Charge Khanh Pham, PharmD, said thenew space will allow Better Health Pharmacy to “dispense a wider variety of medications, [and] we hope [it] will help us serve more county residents at this pharmacy.”

 

While most medication types are eligible for distribution, California laws prevent the nonprofit pharmacy from dispensing certain controlled substances, including pain and anxiety medications like acetaminophen/hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (Oxycontin), and acetaminophen/oxycodone (Percocet). 

 

Better Health Pharmacy and other charitable drug initiatives are improving access to essential medications for low-income, uninsured patients in the United States. 

 

One such organization called the Dispensary of Hope has collected more than $150 million in medications from both manufacturers and health systems since its founding in 2003.

 

Dispensary of Hope CEO Christopher Palombo, MA, MSHM, FACHE, told Pharmacy Times that participating manufacturers and health systems are motivated to donate by moral imperatives and economic incentives.

 

“The reality we explain to manufacturers [and other donors] is it’s weird to destroy something while there are uninsured people who otherwise wouldn’t have the medications they need,” he said.

 

Palombo asserted that there is “absolutely no opportunity cost” to donating the drugs.

The potential impact of charitable drug distribution is substantial. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 30 million individuals will remain uninsured after the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented, and internal calculations from the Dispensary of Hope suggest that there are billions of dollars in surplus medicines each year.

SOURCE: PHARMACY TIMES

MH-CET for medicine, engineering on May 5

The government of Maharashtra has issued the notification of the common entrance test for all health sciences, engineering and pharmacy for academic year 2016-17. The single common entrance test for the courses will be held on May 5, 2016 and application for the same has to be done through the online process only.

According to the notification issued by Aseem Gupta, competent authority and commissioner, State Common Entrance Test Cell, Maharashtra state, the cell would be conducting the CET for admission to all health sciences, BVSC and AH, engineering and pharmacy first year degree courses at all district headquarters of Maharashtra on Thursday, May 5. With the government deciding to conduct a single combined CET for medical and engineering courses, the tests are being conducted by the SCETC unlike in the past when the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) conducted the entrance tests for health sciences while the Directorate of Technical Education conducted the tests for engineering and pharmacy courses.

The notification has further said that the information brochure of the MHT-CET 2016 regarding procedure for filling up online application form will be available on both the DMER and MHTCET website, the online application process that will start from March 1 will only be available on the MHTCET site which is http://mhtcet2016.co.in.

Mr Gupta said that students should go through the preliminary information given on the website before submitting the online application form. “Detailed rules and regulations of the examination and the admission process will be published on the above mentioned websites in due course,” said Mr Gupta.

Going by past records of the entrance tests, an estimated 4 lakh students are expected to appear for the tests. Under the single CET format, the physics and chemistry papers will remain common while those students aspiring to secure admission in medical colleges will have to opt for biology as the third paper while those looking for admission to engineering have to opt for maths.

Feb 29, 2016 | Age Correspondent | Mumbai

Indian Consumer Major, Dabur, To Produce Two New Ayurvedic Drugs

India’s fourth largest consumer goods company, Dabur, signed a deal on Wednesday to make two newdrugs for malaria and diabetes management based on the ancient Indian science of Ayurveda.

The $1.3 billion (fiscal 2015 revenues) Delhi company–which is one of the largest manufacturers of Ayurvedic medicines in the world–will launch the anti-malarial drug (Ayush-64) and the diabetes drug (Ayush-82) in the next six months.

The Ayurvedic formulations for these drugs were developed by the Central Council of Research in Ayurvedic Sciences–the apex body for Ayurvedic research in India. It’s a government agency that’s’ into pharmaceutical R&D and Ayurvedic drug development. Dabur will commercially produce the drugs.

The Ayurvedic council has been into drug development for the last four decades. It’s now working with industry leaders to commercialize drugs.

Dabur, for its part, is looking at partnerships in R&D relating to Ayurvedic medicines encompassing the entire spectrum from drug development to formulation development to pre-clinical and clinical studies.

Dabur will be supported by its extensive distribution network. (It sells through 6 million outlets across the country.) It’s also looking at marketing some of the products that the council has already developed.

Dabur, which is a leading producer of a diverse array of consumer goods from hair oil to honey to herbal supplements, has a rich history of Ayurveda. It was founded in 1884 by an Ayurvedic practitioner S.K. Burman. He started off by making medicines in his Kolkata home for widespread diseases of those times–like cholera and malaria. The company has many ancient Indian texts outlining these formulations. (It also has automated greenhouses in Nepal and Uttaranchal for growing rare herbs.)

Dabur’s chairman, Anand Burman, who has a PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry, also has a keen interest in promoting Ayurvedic medicines. In fact, he used extracts from the Asian yew tree to develop anticancer drugs. His name is linked to about 40 patents.

Dabur’s announcement comes at a time when Ayurveda itself has become a popular buzz word. Take for instance,Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, founded by yoga guru Baba Ramdev in 2006 along with Acharya Bal Krishna. The company, which offers a range of products from toothpaste to whole-wheat noodles to biscuits, has become one of the fastest growing consumer goods companies in India.

Anu Raghunathan ,

 CONTRIBUTOR   |  

Forbes Asia | FEB 24, 2016 @ 08:35 AM

Free Drug Donation Pharmacy Opens in California

Allison Gilchrist, Associate Editor | Published Online: Wednesday, February 24, 2016

California’s first surplus prescription medication program recently opened its doors.  

Better Health Pharmacy is dedicated to collecting and dispensing unused, unopened, and unexpired medications from state-regulated facilities to patients for free. 

Up until now, these drug donation services have been housed in the Santa Clara Public Health Department Pharmacy. The program has dispensed more than 8700 prescriptions and generated a savings of more than $400,000 since the initiative began in 2015. 

From the program’s new home in San Jose, California, patients in need will be able to obtain their prescriptions at no cost and without co-pays. 

Drug donation pharmacies are a practical response to the increasing need for free or low-cost medications. Nearly 23% of US adults report missing or skipping prescriptions altogether solely because of cost.

In a press release, Pharmacist-in-Charge Khanh Pham, PharmD, said the new space will allow Better Health Pharmacy to “dispense a wider variety of medications, [and] we hope [it] will help us serve more county residents at this pharmacy.” 

While most medication types are eligible for distribution, California laws prevent the nonprofit pharmacy from dispensing certain controlled substances, including pain and anxiety medications like acetaminophen/hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (Oxycontin), and acetaminophen/oxycodone (Percocet).  

Better Health Pharmacy and other charitable drug initiatives are improving access to essential medications for low-income, uninsured patients in the United States.  

One such organization called the Dispensary of Hope has collected more than $150 million in medications from both manufacturers and health systems since its founding in 2003. 

Dispensary of Hope CEO Christopher Palombo, MA, MSHM, FACHE, told Pharmacy Times that participating manufacturers and health systems are motivated to donate by moral imperatives and economic incentives. 

“The reality we explain to manufacturers [and other donors] is it’s weird to destroy something while there are uninsured people who otherwise wouldn’t have the medications they need,” he said. Palombo asserted that there is “absolutely no opportunity cost” to donating the drugs.
The potential impact of charitable drug distribution is substantial. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 30 million individuals will remain uninsured after the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented, and internal calculations from the Dispensary of Hope suggest that there are billions of dollars in surplus medicines each year.

SOURCE: PHARMACY TIMES

Einstein's gravitational waves 'seen' from black holes

Scientists are claiming a stunning discovery in their quest to fully understand gravity.

They have observed the warping of space-time generated by the collision of two black holes more than a billion light-years from Earth.

The international team says the first detection of these gravitational waves will usher in a new era for astronomy.

It is the culmination of decades of searching and could ultimately offer a window on the Big Bang.

The research, by the LIGO Collaboration, has been published today in the journalPhysical Review Letters.

The collaboration operates a number of labs around the world that fire lasers through long tunnels, trying to sense ripples in the fabric of space-time.

Gravitational waves: A triumph for big science

Expected signals are extremely subtle, and disturb the machines, known as interferometers, by just fractions of the width of an atom.

But the black hole merger was picked up by two widely separated LIGO facilities in the US.

The merger radiated three times the mass of the sun in pure gravitational energy.

"We have detected gravitational waves," Prof David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO project, told journalists at a news conference in Washington DC.

"It's the first time the Universe has spoken to us through gravitational waves. Up until now, we've been deaf."

Prof Karsten Danzmann, from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physicsand Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany, is a European leader on the collaboration.

He said the detection was one of the most important developments in science since the discovery of the Higgs particle, and on a par with the determination of the structure of DNA.

"There is a Nobel Prize in it - there is no doubt," he told the BBC.

"It is the first ever direct detection of gravitational waves; it's the first ever direct detection of black holes and it is a confirmation of General Relativity because the property of these black holes agrees exactly with what Einstein predicted almost exactly 100 years ago."

• Gravitational waves are prediction of the Theory of General Relativity
• Their existence has been inferred by science but only now directly detected
• They are ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by violent events
• Accelerating masses will produce waves that propagate at the speed of light
• Detectable sources ought to include merging black holes and neutron stars
• LIGO fires lasers into long, L-shaped tunnels; the waves disturb the light
• Detecting the waves opens up the Universe to completely new investigations

---

That view was reinforced by Prof Stephen Hawking, who is an expert on black holes. Speaking exclusively to BBC News, he said he believed that the detection marked a key moment in scientific history.

"Gravitational waves provide a completely new way at looking at the Universe. The ability to detect them has the potential to revolutionise astronomy. This discovery is the first detection of a black hole binary system and the first observation of black holes merging," he said.

"Apart from testing (Albert Einstein's theory of) General Relativity, we could hope to see black holes through the history of the Universe. We may even see relics of the very early Universe during the Big Bang at some of the most extreme energies possible."

Team member Prof Gabriela González, from Louisiana State University, said: "We have discovered gravitational waves from the merger of black holes. It's been a very long road, but this is just the beginning.

"Now that we have the detectors to see these systems, now that we know binary black holes are out there - we'll begin listening to the Universe. "

The LIGO laser interferometers in Hanford, in Washington, and Livingston, in Louisiana, were only recently refurbished and had just come back online when they sensed the signal from the collision. This occurred at 10.51 GMT on 14 September last year.

On a graph, the data looks like a symmetrical, wiggly line that gradually increases in height and then suddenly fades away.

"We found a beautiful signature of the merger of two black holes and it agrees exactly - fantastically - with the numerical solutions to Einstein equations... it looked too beautiful to be true," said Prof Danzmann.

SOURCE : http://www.bbc.com/    | 11 February 2016

This Assam Mechanic Made A 'Jugaad' Helicopter Using SUV Engines & Car Seats!

Chandra Siwakoti Sharma recently built a jugaad helicopter using car seats and two SUV engines and guess what he named it? Pawan Putra!

An automobile mechanic by profession, Sharma spent over 15 lakhs from his own savings to design the unique invention. A resident of Shyamjuli village in Assam, Sharma dropped out of school after third grade due to poor financial conditions. 

But determination drove the man like no other. He used all his savings and even sold his land to build his Pawan Putra, an invention that's awaiting clearance from authorities.

While speaking to The Hindustan Times, Sharma said, "My helicopter can fly, though not as fast as the ones in operation for civil or military duty. It can easily move at 50 kmph." 

The two-seater helicopter can fly 30 to 50 feet above the ground. Sharma built the helicopter as an answer to poor transportation to his village.

Victor Carpenter, the District Commissioner said that even though he wants to encourage inventions such as these, but since Sharma lacks a degree in aviation, his appeal will be forwaded to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to arrange a trial run of the helicopter.

The local residents of Sharma's village have also written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give his nod of approval. Sharma said he wanted to fly the helicopter but refrained from it as he didn't want to break any rules.

SOURCE : http://www.indiatimes.com/  | February 7, 2016