The Union commerce ministry is set to device an action plan to reduce dependence on China for import of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) by Indian pharmaceutical firms.

As part of this, a preliminary meeting chaired by Sudhansu Pandey, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, sought suggestions and ideas to device a strategic planning from all the stakeholders of pharmaceutical industry, research institutes and bulk drug manufacturing association. “Recent meeting held by Commerce Ministry was attended by Director, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), chairman of Bulk Drugs Manufacturers Association (BDMA) and Pharmexcil to discuss on the issue of overdependence on China for import of APIs. We have submitted our views about the pharma industry. The ministry has sought more information about Key Starting Materials (KSMs) and APIs being imported by the member companies from China and other countries,” informed Uday Bhaskar, Director General of Pharmexcil.

Earlier in 2015, the government of India had declared Year 2015 as the “Year of Active pharmaceutical Ingredients’ and promised to come out with a strategic plan to encourage more domestic players to manufacture APIs in India at affordable rates rather than depending on China for sourcing cheaper APIs. However, after that announcement there was no concrete steps from the government’s end to transform the promise into ground level actions.

“The Make in India, allowing 100 per cent FDI in pharma and recent announcement of promoting more domestic industries into pharmaceutical production have all filled a positive confidence among the industry players. However there was something missing when it comes to transforming those things into reality. What industry is looking at from the government is to come out with large scale incentives and tax rebates to encourage more players to invest into the API manufacturing sector. To reach the Chinese capacity of global exports of APIs at competitive prices we need to build huge capacities. Unless and until it is fully supported by the government this is not possible,” revealed industry experts.

However, though late, the ministry has come in the right time to seek the industry assistance with regard to devising a strategic planning for devising a solution for reducing the overdependence on China for APIs. In this regard, Pharmexcil has sought information from all its member companies to share the inputs about imports of KSMs, and APIs from China and other countries during the past two years since 2014.  “Very soon we can expect an action plan to reduce the dependence on china and to make India self-sufficient by developing technology to manufacture Intermediates, KSMs indigenously, for this all the firms need to provide their inputs pertaining to imports to the extent possible. This would enable the Council to work in the right direction and take up the matter with the commerce ministry for further assistance and devising a suitable action plan,” informed the DG.