Turkey’s top science body to produce biosimilar cancer drugs

KOCAELİ – Anadolu Agency

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Turkey’s stop science body aims to produce domestic cancer drugs by producing biosimilar molecules, according to an expert. 

The Marmara Research Center (MAM), working under the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), has launched a project aiming to produce biosimilar cancer drugs.

“It is difficult to bring cancer drugs [to Turkey] as we are dependent on foreign producers of cancer drugs.

Biotechnical drugs are very popular abroad. There have been rapid developments in biosimilar products in the last two years,” said Dr. Koray Balcıoğlu, one of the researchers at MAM. 

“Biotechnical drugs bring interest of around $40 million. Our country paid $1.6 billion for oncological drugs in 2014. For that reason, we plan to produce biosimilar molecules domestically with this project,” said Balcıoğlu, adding they started the project around 10 months ago. 

Recalling that around 8 million cancer patients are dying each year across the world, Balcıoğlu said it was difficult to produce new cancer drugs despite various researches.

The project is expected to be completed in four years. He said they have determined the genes and transferred them to the vectors, which will be transferred to the cells in the next step.