The National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) Hyderabad's conference on ‘Innovations in Pharmaceuticals and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) management' organised from 21-22 March focused on various issues relating to pharmaceutical industry in the country. The two-day conference discussed issues pertaining to startup industries in pharma and IPR management. It also discussed on various contemporary issues and emerging trends driving the industry and future scope for development.
According to Dr. Ahmed Kamal, project director, NIPER Hyderabad, fostering industry-academy relations is very important for improving research and encouraging innovations in the pharmaceutical industry. As part of this initiative, NIPER Hyderabad is collaborating with the industry in various projects. “Industry-academia relations will help the upcoming graduates to have a firsthand experience of various issues in the industry. It also encourages new research and helps students to come up with innovative ideas and discover new drugs,” observed Dr. Ahmed.
Dr Shraddha Chowdhary, convener of the conference introduced the keynote speaker Utkarsh Palnitkar, national head life sciences practice, KPMG. Palnitkar, in his keynote address, highlighted the positive and the negative dimensions of the present approach to innovation. Innovate or perish was his mantra. He, while complementing that India was leader in ANDA domain, also suggested a reduction in the number of regulators. In this context, he described NIPER as nurturing innovation in pharmaceuticals for entrepreneurial rejuvenation.
M Gopalakrishna, chief guest of the occasion, stressed the need for youngsters to become innovative entrepreneurs. Quoting extensively from various texts, he indicated the need to have a mindset with quench for knowledge. Democracy, demography, diversity, diaspora and demand were India’s advantages that need to be exploited. Clarity of concept, content and context were in his view essentials for innovation. He extolled the academia and industry to come together, identify gaps and work in a collaborative fashion and move towards global excellence.
The ‘Startup India’ session was in tune with government of India’s Make in India initiative. The speakers in the first sessions included Javin Bhinde, Kiran Das, Dr Radhika Meenakshi Shankar, G. Bharat Kumar and Kirtida Desai. They spoke about the make in India initiative and appreciated the fact that the government was playing a role that will help drive investment, foster innovation, develop skills, protect IP and build best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure.
The session on ‘Innovations in Pharmaceutical Management’ had Vivek Padgaonkar, Ameesh Masurekar and Pramod Bhatt as the speakers. In this session, they focused on various innovations that were part of the industry’s foray into the future. Panel discussion on ‘Skill Gap Analysis’ by speakers like P Dinakaran, Dr Sanjit Singh Lamba, Dr Madhav Welling, Dr Ajit Parulekar, Sudheendra Kulkarni from the industry and academia focused on key skill gap to address in the healthcare industry. Mostly it revolved around awareness, capacity building and proper treatment.