SME Pharma Industries Confederation (India) (SPIC) has urged the government to extend liberal funds to the small and medium sector to upgrade itself to the world class standards with a view to exploit the emerging global scenario where Indian generics can grab better opportunities.

"Having huge human capital, competency in chemistry, medicine, engineering and management think tanks, we believe that we have tremendous opportunity to be the foremost suppliers of quality drugs at affordable prices not only in our country but to the world. We will not lose the opportunity if we form the right and practical ground with realistic policies,'' SPIC said in a representation to Pharmaceutical Secretary Ashok Kumar who held interactions with the industry on the latest issues in the sector recently.

The confederation also felt that a slowdown in pharmaceutical exports could happen in the next four months due to restrictive monopolistic attitude of the developed world in the field of regulatory affairs and patent issues. It said India should form attractive policies to support the SME sector so that the country could take the lead in the changed global scenario where China was struggling to cope with the dictates of the developed world.

"The Chinese have a dream to utilise its API production advantage to enter the formulation field and outplace India and it is likely to offer formulations at the prices below our raw material cost, under various free trade agreements in the near future. They have used our scientists by giving them financial advantage to upgrade their API facilities. Many institutions like NIPER have started functioning in China in close cooperation with the industry. They have also provided cheap inputs of chemicals, subsides and liberal finance to achieve this goal. Indian government should realise it and waste no time to strengthen some basic petro-chemical industries, cultivating herbs in organised manner and not depending on herbs from wild growth. With formulation industry already is gearing up to international standards, the base of cheap petrochemicals and natural herbs will give the advantage along with skilled human capital in the pharmaceutical field,'' the letter said.

Noting that manufacturing and chemistry research gave India technical advantage over China, the SPIC felt that synchronisation is not done as required between the public sector institutes and the industry to optimise this advantage. ``These public sector institutions are being used as resting ground for scientists in the name of education and research. The tax payers' money had generated vast amount of published and abandoned research papers with no commercial advantage either to the nation or to the mankind. The capacity building plan in the pharma industry and Rs 8 crore loan taken by the government at 4 per cent interest from the World Bank have given negligible advantage to the SME sector as it had been usurped by multinational companies operating in the country,'' the association claimed.

Urging the Centre to encourage public-private-partnerships, the SPIC called for combined effort by the government and the industry to modify their acts and rules to get away with regulatory barriers in producing quality, safe and cost effective medicines. The Government should liberally help SME pharma sector to help retain its already trained and educated manpower and skills. Financial help is needed by the sector in infrastructure and meeting the global standards of regulatory systems and they should be treated on par with public sector units in these areas, the representation said.

On non-tariff issues, SPIC suggested that India should concentrate more in providing value added quality medicines rather than providing the APIs for export. It also called for creating pharma warehouses in focus countries to overcome logistic problems.