Know how Govt wants to boost the Indian pharmaceutical industry

In a bid to reduce India’s dependency on China for bulk drugs, the government plans to come up with strategies to increase the bulk drug capacity within a stipulated time frame of two months.

“More than 80% of bulk drugs are coming from one source - China so we want to reduce this dependency, basically we need to create capacities,” said Dr VK Subburaj at an event organized by ASSOCHAM.

He further added that the department has been preparing a report under that highlights the concerns and challenges and has come up with different proposals.

“A committee headed by Dr Katoch, secretary, Health Research was looking into that from past one year thereby hearing all concerns and working out the strategies, they have completed the report and submitted proposals, now we are processing the details and in two months we will come out with strategies to reduce this dependency on bulk drugs,” noted Subburaj.

It should be noted that the report will first be sent to the Cabinet for consideration.

The government is also working closely with state governments of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and others in order to provide land for manufacture of bulk drugs.

The Centre also plans to revive Hindustan Antibiotics Limited in order to increase the bulk drug capacity in the country. “Today Hindustan Antibiotics is almost at the end stage and we are trying to rehabilitate that organization,” pointed out Subburaj.

Interestingly, the government also intends to reduce the country’s dependence on other countries for important medical devices as well. At present, nearly 80% of the medical devices is being imported from other countries.

It is worth noting that currently, India just has a meager 5% growth in exports as against 20% as recorded previously. This is being attributed to procedural delay in getting approvals from foreign regulatory bodies.