Having created a niche for itself as a favoured investment destination, the Gujarat government has signed MoUs worth Rs. 15,000 crore with both Indian and international companies in the pharma sector during the recently concluded Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit (VGGS) - 2017 at Gandhinagar held between January 10 and January 13, 2017 under the theme Connecting India to the World with focus on ‘Make in Gujarat’.

The investments will promote Gujarat’s pharma manufacturing strength and align it with Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘Make in India’ campaign, said an official associated with the development.

Over 3,300 pharma manufacturing units are located across the state in four large clusters with 5 Special Economic Zones in an area of over 1500 hectares, as per government of Gujarat data released as part of the 8th Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit (VGGS) - 2017.  

Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Japan, The Netherlands, Poland, UAE, UK, USA, Sweden and Singapore were the partner countries for the summit which attracted 1,250 companies and 110 countries from across all sectors.

Accounting for nearly 40 per cent of India’s pharma production and 28 per cent of pharma exports, Gujarat saw an increase in pharma exports in the past one decade with 3,060 million US Dollars worth of exports in 2016 from a quantum of exports worth 562 million US Dollars in 2006.

As a part of its broader engagement with organisations and academia to develop medical devices sector, Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) is planning to collaborate with National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) Ahmedabad on helping FDCA officers to develop skills on medical device testing.

As per the government’s mandate, NIPER Ahmedabad is also being developed as a National Centre for Medical Devices (NCMD) which will provide a conducive environment to nurture innovators and industry to further the vision of quality medical device manufacturing.

Recommended and promoted by the Union commerce ministry to help Indian manufacturers gain self-reliance in medical device testing in the country, an amount of Rs. 15 crore has also been earmarked for setting up a dedicated medical device testing lab at Vadodara.

Setting up of a dedicated medical device testing lab in the country would be a boon for the Indian manufacturers to help adhere to compliance towards patient safety as the country today lacks in registering and thereby reporting adverse events due to faulty medical devices at the point of care.

Gujarat has the highest number of 150 licensed medical device units under Central Licensing Approval Authority (CLAA) scheme as against a total 284 medical device units in the entire country. The state had 130 units in 2015 and added another 20 units recently.