AP govt unveils policy for life sciences sector

The Andhra Pradesh government today unveiled an exclusive policy for the life sciences sector aiming at USD 13.5 billion market by 2019 with an emphasis on biotechnology, medical devices, bio-services, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.
"This policy will lead to Rs 20,000 crore of new investment and skilled employment opportunity to 50,000 people besides augmenting exports to Rs 60,000 crore by 2019," the policy that was unveiled during the inaugural session of 'BioAsia-2014' said.
The major initiative of the policy is to declare lifesciences sector as an industrial category with a set of steps that will ease compliance of procedures through single window system and provides power at industrial tariff which are hitherto being levied commercial tariff.

Providing uninterrupted power supply for life saving drugs is also one of the steps in the policy, it said.
As a part of infrastructure development, the policy envisages certain projects which are critical for the development of the sector under PPP mode such as Vivarium, vaccine testing facility, animal quarantine and bio-security facility, medical devices park, dedicated life sciences clusters in the form of Genome Valley, parks and institutions, it further said.
K Pradeep Chandra, principal secretary (industries), said that with initiatives mentioned in the policy, the state will become a major attraction for the life sciences industry in the coming years.