Karnataka Drugs and Pharmaceutical Association (KDPMA) has elected Sunil Attavar as its 10th president. He takes over from Jatish N Sheth.

Attavar is the chairman and managing director of Group Pharmaceutical Ltd, a medium-sized pharmaceutical company specializing in the field of dental and oral care.

The other new team of officer bearers are Harish Jain, secretary and director, Embiotic Laboratories (P) Ltd., Manoj Parlecha, joint secretary and managing director, Lake Chemicals and Vipin Kumar, treasurer and director, Tejkamal Pharmaceuticals. In addition, there is a managing committee which comprises of elected and nominated members.

“We will build on the strong foundations that have been set by the previous committees,” said Attavar.

Indian pharma is in the midst of stirring times.  On one hand, there is significant progress with the domestic market showing robust double digit growth. There is huge opportunity for exports with a number of drugs coming off patents in the next few years. There are bright prospects in the domestic and global markets despite a 25 per cent dip in exports. On the other hand, there are challenges for small medium enterprises (SMEs) in this sector, pointed out the newly elected KDPMA president.

Some of the issues that make pharma SMEs cautious are the future of fixed dose combinations, new drug formulations in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), proposal of Government of India to become a member of PIC/S,  up-gradation of Schedule M to meet WHO-GMP norms, implementation of good distribution practices, bar coding on domestic drug packs, lack of clarity on nutraceuticals, he added.

In addition, industries are putting up with import of APIs with huge price fluctuations, unrelenting state pollution control boards, advent of e: pharmacy which will pose challenges to medicine supply chain. KDPMA will do its bit to actively pursue these opportunities and also engage with various stake holders on issues that impact the industry, he said.