No bulk drug policy: Ananth Kumar

The chemical and fertilizers minister said govt decided against a bulk drug policy

The government has decided against a bulk drug policy, chemical and fertiliser minister Ananth Kumar said. Instead, states will have to come up with “bulk drug parks” which will help boost manufacturing of bulk drugs.

Currently, India is dependent on China for bulk drugs, also referred to as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), and there is a concern over quality. More than 75 per cent of India’s bulk drug imports come from China.

Earlier this year, then pharmaceutical secretary V K Subburaj had announced that a policy on bulk drugs was going to be announced by March 2016. The projection was that such a policy would have helped the pharmaceutical sector turn into a $200-billion industry by 2030.

Pharmaceutical industry majors said a bulk drug policy would have brought down India’s dependence on China for APIs.

In India, there are 300 large companies and more than 10,000 medium and small-scale companies in the bulk drug manufacturing sector. About 77 per cent of these companies make formulations and 23 per cent APIs. Some of these companies include Sun Pharmaceutical, Alembic and Lupin.

D G Shah, secretary general, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, said bulk drug parks alone would not encourage investors. One has to have an environment conducive for manufacturing. He added that by not coming up with the policy, the bulk drug industry was slowly being killed. Earlier, a Cabinet note was also floated for a bulk drug policy based on the Katoch committee recommendations.