The Central government is contemplating to set up India’s first medical devices park in Gujarat soon. As the Narendra Modi government is pitching for ‘Make in India’ campaign and has also allowed 100 per cent foreign direct investment in medical devices sector, the Central government is taking all the necessary steps to establish India’s first medical devices park in Gujarat.
In order to speed up the process and strategically strengthen the medical devices sector, the Union health ministry has also released recommendations by the Task Force for the promotion of domestic production of high end medical devices and pharmaceutical manufacturing equipments in the country.
According to Sanjay Banerjee, chairman of the India Working Group of AdvaMed more than 70 per cent of India’s medical devices requirement is met by imports. Though the local manufacturers are meeting the needs of low end and small equipments in the country, the high end and advanced medical devices are mostly imported. “It is good to see that at last the central government is coming up with encouraging initiatives for the medical devices industry. In fact we greatly appreciate the government’s decision to revise the Drugs & Cosmetics (Amendment) Bill because a globally harmonized regulatory environment and a strong patent regime will definitely encourage investors to set up factories and invest in research and development, In fact the central government should come out with some more encouraging schemes for the growth of small scale medical devices manufacturers in the country,” says Banerjee.
Currently only 30 per cent of the country’s requirement of medical devices is being met through indigenous production and that too of low end category. To improve the country’s manufacturing capabilities in this area, the central government is taking several steps to boost the domestic production of high end medical devices & pharmaceutical manufacturing equipment.
As part of this the central government is planning to set up India’s first medical devices park in Gujarat soon. For this, the government has also instituted NIPER, Ahmadabad as nodal institute for undertaking research and development in this area.
For encouraging more start ups and indigenous manufacturers in the medical devices sector, the central government is also planning to implement the recommendations by Task force in a time bound manner and very soon the government is also looking into giving tax incentives for indigenous manufacturers.