The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) will soon initiate comprehensive measures to boost the pharmaceutical exports from the country as per the recommendations of the Rajiv Kher Task Force which had submitted its report to the prime minister in March this year. For implementing the recommendations, the DoP has called an urgent meeting on August 13 to discuss the issue threadbare. Industry has also been invited for the meeting.

According to sources, the prime minister's Office has directed the DoP to implement the Rajiv Kher Task Force report which had recommended several sweeping measures to boost the pharma exports. The Task Force was constituted by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh way back in July 2006 to recommend measures for increasing exports of pharmaceutical products and also to find ways and means to ease the bottlenecks coming in the way of pharmaceutical exports.

In fact, a preliminary meeting in this regard was held on August 10 but major issues were not discussed in detail as the industry was not prepared due to short of time as the meeting was called at very short notice.

The Task Force has identified several areas in which the industry needs government support to sustain the growth of the industry. Its key recommendations included comprehensive measures for accelerating the growth of generic pharmaceutical industry in the country, enhancing India's R&D, promoting contract manufacturing, drug discovery & clinical trials, Indian System of Medicines & Ayush.

For accelerating the growth of generic pharmaceutical industry in the country, the task force recommended to pursue the prioritised funding by institutions like Exim Bank through Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs). It also asked the government to treat investments in quality on par with R&D to enhance quality and skilled scientific personnel.

For enhancing R&D, the task force recommended that the commercial R&D firms promoted by established firms as subsidiaries should be allowed for the purpose of tax holidays in pharmaceutical industry. Other measures in this regard include focusing on immediately commercialisable technologies by government institutions, providing certain capital by the banks for taking up commercialisable R&D and encouraging public private Initiatives in R&D.

The task force, headed by Rajiv Kher, joint secretary in the union ministry of commerce, had held several rounds of meetings with all the stakeholders including the pharma industry and the officials before finalising its findings. The task force exclusively on pharam exports was constituted by the PM in the wake of the pharmacy industry making strides in the country during the last some years.

As the industry has grown by leaps and bounds, it brought in its wake its own problems and bottlenecks. It was under this background the PM intervened to form an exclusive task force to find ways to ease the pharma exports which holds tremendous future.