Soon a public-private initiative will be launched to resurrect the ailing Hyderabad unit of Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (IDPL), including starting of training courses to develop manpower for clinical research and drug development. Industry will fund Rs 15 crore for revival.
At a meeting of senior officials from the Dept. of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Government of Andhra Pradesh, industry associations like BDMA, Pharmexcil and IPA-A.P. State Branch, held yesterday in Hyderabad, it has been decided to form a new society involving IDPL, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) and stake holding pharma associations to resurrect the IDPL-Hyderabad. The pharma associations have agreed to fund about Rs 15 crore for the revival, and the private sector will have participatory role in the running of the management of the new society/organisation, which will run the unit.
The society will initially start courses in clinical research, using the facilities at the unit. NIPER will provide its expertise in giving academic assistance in various pharma related technical courses. Industry will provide its industrial expertise and NIMS will conduct courses in Clinical Research. Initially, diplomas will be awarded to the students/trainees. The meeting has decided to start the courses at the earliest, possibly, by July 2006, so that the first batch of students can be selected for training, Pharmexcil sources said.
In the long run and in a phased manner, the entire available facilities at the IDPL unit would be utilised for creating additional facilities like Pharma Parks, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) for pharma sector where units of drug formulations, biotech products, herbals etc. would be established. The ultimate objective of the whole scheme is to provide adequate returns to IDPL and to ensure the continuity of Govt's goal in establishing IDPL for developing pharma industry in the country. The meeting also decided to have a definite timeframe to finalize the proposal for its quick start-up, informed the sources.
Satwant Reddy, Secretary and GS Sandhu, Joint Secretary, Dept. of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Lakshmi Parthasarathi, Principal Secretary, Dept. of Commerce and Industry and Export Promotion, Govt. of AP and Dr.Prasada Rao, Director, NIMS headed the meeting.
It may be noted that as part of the revival plan of IDPL, the government, which is working out a detailed revival package, has already released Rs 3 crore for redeveloping the three plants located at Rishikesh, Gurgaon and Chennai. The government also had entrusted the National Institute of Pharmaceuticals and Education Research (NIPER) to takeover the reigns of the IDPL R&D centre Hyderabad. The Central Government had also sanctioned Rs 1 crore for renovation and upkeep of the building and laboratory facilities in the R&D centre. The formulation and bulk drug unit was closed many years ago. IDPL's Hyderabad unit has over 950 acres of land at its disposal, worth several crores.
The five units of IDPL at Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurgaon, Rishikesh and Muzaffarpur have a total asset base of over Rs 15,000 crore, with highly sophisticated plant and machinery to produce a number of drugs at a low cost.