The government will provide sufficient funds for both private and government sectors to promote pharmaceutical research culture in the country. This was stated by Federal Minister for Science & Technology Azam Khan Swati while addressing a two-day international conference on Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery on Tuesday. He urged Pakistani scientists to develop mutual research projects with the local industry and use the expertise of their foreigner partners to stimulate research and development in Pakistan. The international conference was organised by Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) in collaboration with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), COMSTECH Islamabad, Abdul Wali Khan University (AWKU), Punjab University and Woman University. “Pakistan’s contribution to R&D is one of the prime goals of the government, as the government has allocated Rs 52.997 billion in budget 2018-19, which is more than 53 percent as compared to the previous year,” said the minister. Earlier, the chief organiser of the conference Professor Dr Bushra Mirza, from QAU welcomed all the distinguished guests from the United Kingdom, Organisation of Islamic Council (OIC) countries, Germany and Pakistan. She said that the conference has been organised for providing an opportunity to our scientists at local level to interact on the themes under discussion and to solve health related issues. RSC former president Sir John Holman said that chemical sciences have the potential to provide innovative solutions to the world’s greatest challenges in healthcare, agriculture, nutrition, food production, environment, clean water and medicine. QAU Pharmacy Department Chairman Professor Dr Gul Majid Khan lauded the organisers and said that this is the first of its kind activity to discuss medicinal chemistry and drug discovery in Pakistan. COMSTECH Adviser Dr Khurshid Hasnain, AWKU Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Khurshid Khan and Woman University VC Professor Dr Khanzadi Fatima also addressed the conference. It was a global conference as speakers from different countries but similar research background presented their talks. Out of the total 38 speakers, 14 were from UK, including eight from Oxford University. Twelve speakers were from OIC countries including Algeria, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Palestine and Egypt and one was from Germany while 11 speakers were from various universities of Pakistan. It was unanimously resolved that more frequent meetings in the form of conferences and workshops must be arranged to highlight medicinal chemistry and drug discovery and to build strong collaboration among scientists, industry experts and drug regulation authority personals. Published in Daily Times, October 24th 2018.