The Andhra Pradesh government lead by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is leaving no stone unturned to attract new investors in pharmaceutical and biotechnology in the newly carved out residual state. Naidu has committed to the people of the state that Andhra Pradesh will soon re-emerge as one of the leading hubs for pharma and biotechnology sector in the country.

As part of this, Chief Minister Naidu is touring all the states in the country and even visiting countries like Japan, Singapore and Malaysia to attract new investments in pharma and biotechnology sectors. While taking part in a CITI India Investors Conference 2015 in Mumbai recently, the chief minister highlighted huge potential of Vishakhapatnam (Vizag) as one of the fastest emerging hubs for pharma, bulk drug and biotechnology companies in the state.

After bifurcation of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and Andhra, major chunk of bulk drug, formulation and biotechnology industry based in Hyderabad and surrounding districts have gone to Telangana state, while only a small portion of it in Vishakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Nellore have become part of existing Andhra Pradesh.

Though the state of AP is strong in Agriculture sector, industrially it is lagging way behind when compared to Hyderabad. Particularly in biotechnology, AP does not have many units which manufacture vaccines.

While on other hand Hyderabad has a strong bulk drugs industry presence. Both historically and by virtue of it being the capital city of erstwhile AP, Hyderabad has got a well developed industrial infrastructure.

Thanks to Naidu for his visionary outlook in IT, pharma and biotechnology, Telangana State is blessed with well designed infrastructure layouts like Shameerpet Biotech Park, Jeedimetala bulk drugs industrial corridor, Patancheru industrial layout, Katedan industrial corridors, Kottur industrial areas, where hundreds of bulk drugs, formulations and biotechnology industries have established their bases during Naidu’s regime as CM of erstwhile AP during 1994 to 2003.

With the same spirit, Naidu now owes to rejuvenate the pharma and biotechnology industry in the remnant Andhra Pradesh and has carved out pro-active industrial policy to attract investors in pharmaceutical and biotechnology segments. “Our thrust is to build a life sciences hub in Andhra Pradesh for which we have devised a single-desk mechanism on the lines of single window system launched by our government way back in 2002. With this system we will be provide all clearances is 21 days and the government will make a provision for deemed approvals and exemptions. We will also provide hand-holding services to investors, and enable them to file online applications," explained the Chief Minister while giving a presentation to the investors.