The Market Access Initiative (MAI) of 50 per cent of the product
registration fee offered to the pharmaceutical exporters by the commerce
ministry is found to be largely underutilized, according to the
Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil).

The
initiative which was introduced in 2004 allows small, medium and large
pharma to receive assistance to the tune of a maximum of Rs. 50 lakh annually for any drug which is registered for export anywhere in the world.

Under
the MAI scheme, a company could file any number of products for
registration. Once the registration is accepted, the regulatory
authority of the exporting country will intimate to the company to pay
the registration fee through banks. The paid receipts is a documented
record for trading clearance and this could be submitted to Ministry of
Commerce through Pharmexcil for refund amounting to 50 per cent of the
total registration cost. “While this is a big boon to the exporters in
the pharma sector, we are surprised that there are very few takers to
the scheme”, Raghuveer Kini, additional executive director, Pharmexcil
told Pharmabiz.

The reimbursement of product registration charges also covers biotechnology drugs.

The
MAI is a big relief for pharma exporters of any size. While many large
pharma companies are making use of the reimbursement of registration
costs, it is the small and medium companies which have stayed away for
the scheme. The key reason could be lack of awareness. In fact,
reimbursement of registration costs could increase the number of
exporters, he added.

Indian pharma exports is expected to touch
$10 billion in 2009-10. According to the pharma trade statistics
available from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and
Statistics (DGCIS), the exports of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals
stood at US$ 8.61 billion in 2008-09 with a growth rate of 28.54 per
cent. Asia is the largest importing region with a share of 30 per cent
constituted by Indian pharma exports, followed by Europe at 24 per
cent, North America at 21 per cent, Africa at 14 per cent and Latin
America and Caribbean (LAC) accounting for 7 per cent.

Further,
according to DGCIS, exports of medical herbs and Ayush drugs accounted
for US$ 251.9 million in 2008-09 with a growth rate of 27.31 per cent.

Commenting
on the underutilization of MAI, Anjan K Roy, president, Karnataka Drugs
and Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (KDPMA) and managing
director RL Fine Chem said that the poor response to the scheme is
attributed to not the poor awareness but the inability to remember
the reimbursement scheme after companies received the registration
clearance from the international regulatory authority. Going by the
challenging procedures for exports, it is not surprising that many
companies overlook and fail to recall this financial support which comes
in as a big relief.

“We should now make sincere efforts to
educate the small and medium industry which are registering products for
exports to maximize the MAI assistance,” added Roy.