Lack of adequate R&D institutions to support the pharmaceutical industry in Tamil Nadu is one among the main reasons that stall the growth of pharmaceutical industry in Tamil Nadu, according to Prof. Dr. B Suresh, president, Pharmacy Council of India (PCI).
Delivering the theme lecture, 'Development of Pharma Industry in world scenario,' as part of the seminar 'World Scenario- Pharma industry and cluster approach,' organized by the Chennai Pharma Industrial Infrastructure Upgradation Company (CPIIUC), he said while the neighboring states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have reputed government-run organizations to support the R&D initiatives of Pharma industry, Chennai has to be satisfied with the IIT Chennai and CLRI, which are focused on non-pharma related research.
Karnataka industry has the backing of institutions like the Indian Institute of Science (IIS), Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) at Mysore, Central Food and Technical Research Institute (CFTRI) etc. Similarly, institutions like ISCT, CCMB, NBRI etc support the bulk drug industry and formulation business in Hyderabad and in other parts of Andhra Pradesh. Favourable industrial environment like single window clearance has accelerated the growth of pharma industry in these states.
The Tamil Nadu Government should stress to set up adequate Pharma infrastructure, which will help in automatic growth of the industry in the region. Setting up of pharmaceutical technological parks and adequate academic resource centres are need of the hour, bemoans Dr.Suresh.
Chief guest for the function, D. Rajendran, secretary, SSI, Government of Tamil Nadu said the industries should utilize the Rs 6500 odd corpus fund earmarked for the next 6-7 years for cluster development of industries in the country, anticipating the challenges to be faced in the post 2004 patent free regime. Future for SSIs are in fields like herbal medicines, biotechnology, agro & food processing, IT enabled services etc. Already Tamil Nadu has initiated projects under cluster development in the fields of pump & motor, leather, automobile, coir and allied industries, food sector, printing, cane & jute etc., besides the pharmaceutical industry initiative CPIIUC in Chennai. If required at a later stage, CPIIUC's project could be scaled up from the present Rs 20 crore to even Rs 50 crore under the Industrial Infrastructure Upgradation Scheme of the Central Government, said the secretary.
T Ravichandran, chairman, Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA), Tamilnadu State Board, Vijay A Mehtha, president, Tamil Nadu Ayurvedic Siddha and Unani Drugs Manufacturers Association and B Sethuraman, president, Phamaceutical Manufacturers Association of Tamil Nadu spoke on the subject 'needs of pharma industry'. S Lakshminarayanan, secretary, Alathur Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and Manohar S Singh, Business Partner, TUV Rheinland (India) Pvt.Ltd., elaborated on the plans of CPIIUC. S S Vanagamudi, chairman, CPIIUC, chaired the function.