The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers may stake claim over the administrative rights of Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil), currently functioning under the Department of Commerce.

The ministry's claim is to derive strength from the fact that several other export promotion councils, EPC for textiles or electronics for instance, come under the respective ministries, i.e., Ministry of Textiles or Ministry of Electronics, and not under Department of Commerce. The ministry plans may be revealed in the forthcoming Pharma Policy 2005, sources informed.

As per the current system, Pharmexcil, formed a year ago, comes under the direct control of Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The council is the sole agency authorised for issuance of registration-cum-membership certificate to exporters of drugs and pharmaceuticals. The council also organises buyer-seller meets, conferences and workshops and initiate studies on export markets.

Interestingly, the Ministry of Chemicals has a separate pharmaceutical export promotion cell that also acts as a nodal agency in the matters related to export of pharmaceuticals. The cell interacts with various departments and Indian missions abroad in a bid to find quick solutions to the day-to-day problems of drug exporters. It collects statistical data on export and import of pharmaceuticals in the country and provides commercially useful information on developing and increasing drugs and pharmaceutical exports.

The cell has also been entrusted with organisation of seminars and workshops on standards, quality control requirements etc. of important countries so as to prepare domestic companies for exporting their products.

The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers is known to be under the impression that there could be more synergy between the council and the cell if brought under the same administrative umbrella.

It should be noted that Pharmexcil has, during the last one year, completed about 40 country reports giving details about the pharma market, the regulations, market access schemes and fast moving off patent products of each of these countries. The council is known to be ready with a comprehensive report on Australia for the benefit of its members.

The drug export promotion cell of the Chemicals Ministry is also mandated to do a similar job. The cell is supposed to communicate with Indian missions abroad to collect information related to pharmaceutical industry in these countries such as, status of the pharmaceutical industry, details of documentation, guidelines for licensing of pharmaceutical companies as well as registration for medicines, details of pharmaceutical market with information on local production, demographic data, details of health care system, health indicators and prevalent disease pattern, details of imports of pharmaceuticals of these countries, details of joint venture units for pharmaceuticals operating in these countries etc. The information so collected is meant to be passed on to the industry/exporters for boosting pharmaceutical exports.

Interestingly, the cell administers two joint working groups namely, Indo Tunisia joint working group on drug and pharmaceuticals and Indo-Belarusian joint working group on drugs and healthcare. Pharmexcil was also an active participant in both these missions. However, the drug industry seems to be interested in maintaining status quo with regard to the administrative role of the ministries on Pharmexcil.

Sources informed that Pharmexcil should ideally remain under Ministry of Commerce as it has varied responsibilities like herbal and nutraceutical exports, promotion of biotechnology, exploring clinical research opportunities and export promotion of medical devices. Many of these areas come under the administrative control of Ministries of Science and Technology and Health.