Nano-based pharma project for Malaysia

A five year plan to spend 100.0 million ringitt ($27.8 million) to develop, manufacture and market nanotechnology-based pharmaceutical products locally and abroad has been announced by Nanopharm Technologies.

Chairman Brigadier General Mohd Arshad Raji explained in a interview that : "Nanopharm is a joint-venture company formed last October between the TLWAY group of companies and Russia-based LLC Polymorph. It is to be a pioneer in development of pharmaceutical products using nano-technology, and we see enormous potential in the technology. We planned to have our own local manufacturing facility in 2007."

Nanopharm also plans to set up the world's fifth nano-technology R&D facility locally to further exploit this technology potential. One of the existing four centers is in Russia, and owned by LLC Polymorph.