Government to announce steps to boost pharma sector

A new pharmaceutical policy as well as measures to support the growth of bulk drug sector on the anvil

The Government of India would soon announce a slew of steps to encourage innovation and growth in the pharmaceutical industry, said V K Subburaj, secretary, pharmaceuticals - Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers.

“These steps include a new pharmaceutical policy as well as measures to support the growth of the bulk drug sector. They would be announced in a month’s time,” he said.

Addressing the convocation ceremony of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (Niper) here today, Subburaj said India now had to plan for meeting the pharma needs of the world as exports had already reached every country in the world.

“It is a proud and successful industry in India today, exporting medicines to 220 countries in the world. Over 60 per cent of the vaccines is produced in India. There was nothing prior to Independence,” he said, adding in the next ten years the pharma sector was expected to grow five times from the present Rs 2-lakh-crore level.

India leads in disease burden in the world, including heart diseases, tuberculosis, cancer, blindness and mental illnesses and that itself is a huge opportunity for the domestic pharmaceutical sector to innovate and grow, according to him.

He also stressed the need to ramp up the capacities of Nipers besides upgrading them in terms of quality. “Except the Mohali institute, the remaining centres are stagnating even though these institutes were originally conceived on a par with the IITs,” he said.

Stating that the industry required thousands of pharmacy graduates, he said these institutes were able to produce only 600 graduates each year. Ahead in research, the Mohali institute has developed two new drug molecules, he said.

Focus shifts to biologicals
Ariz Ahammed, joint secretary - pharmaceuticals, said,  “About 136 molecules were launched last year of which only 38 are available in India. As access to new drugs is very limited, we need to explore the filed of innovation.”

Also, according to him, drug research is shifting from chemistry to biology. In 2015, about 40 per cent of the approvals would be for the biological medicines in the US.

To forge a close linkage with the industry, Niper-Hyderabad would be entering into an MoU with Dr Reddy's Laboratories soon, according to Ahammed.