The Turkish industry and technology minister on Sunday paid a visit to genetics labs where research towards the country\u2019s first locally produced biosimilar head and neck cancer drug is being conducted.<\/p>\n
A biosimilar drug is a medication similar to a \u201creference drug,\u201d produced after the expiration of the latter\u2019s pharmaceutical patent.<\/p>\n
Mustafa Varank attended the first exhibition of the drug\u2019s production stages at the Marmara Research Center of the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council (TUBITAK).<\/p>\n
“We want to gain this technology for our country by developing biotechnological drugs locally,\u201d Varank said during the visit to the Biosimilar Cancer-Treatment Drug Development and Production Project (BIOSIM).<\/p>\n
Noting that BIOSIM was a project meant to produce medication for the treatment of cancer in the head and neck, Varank added that there were 180 different biosimilar drugs that Turkey could produce.<\/p>\n
He said the project had successfully produced the cancer drug in lab conditions, with plans for its delivery to the private sector by May of next year.<\/p>\n
Experts say that the drug produced by BIOSIM will have a market value of $1 million per kilogram.<\/p>\n
While chemotherapy is currently the most widely used treatment for cancer, recent years have seen its gradual replacement with biotechnological drugs — or biopharmaceuticals — which are developed from living cells, as opposed to chemical reactions.<\/p>\n
The development and production of such drugs require cutting-edge capabilities in molecular biology and genetic engineering.<\/p>\n
Turkey imports its entire biotechnological drug needs which represent 20 percent of its pharmaceutical sector.<\/p>\n
Ankara is looking to boost investment into this sector amid efforts to increase research and development for “domestic and national” high-tech industries.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Turkish industry and technology minister on Sunday paid a visit to genetics labs where research towards the country\u2019s first locally produced biosimilar head and neck cancer drug is being conducted. A biosimilar drug is a medication similar to a \u201creference drug,\u201d produced after the expiration of the latter\u2019s pharmaceutical patent. Mustafa Varank attended the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":61992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,1,107,118,895,174,1165],"tags":[43622,77182],"class_list":["post-61990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-general","category-health","category-hot","category-life","category-turkey-daily","category-turkey-life","tag-tubitak","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}