Steadfast with their long-standing demand for autonomy, medical device industry wants the government to work towards setting up a separate department for the medical devices at the earliest. While the industry is motivated with the government's move to promote the medical device as a focus sector, experts insist that only by constituting a distinct department under the government, will help the sector to get the required boost to grow and attract investors.

The Association of Indian Medical Devices Industry (AIMED) pointed out that considering the different dynamics of the industry, it should be ideally housed directly under the prime ministers office (PMO) as in done in Japan. As another option, it can be housed under ministry of health (MoH) after considering the need for coordination between various other departments and ministries dealing with technologies.

Currently, medical device industry valued at US$ 4 billion in India is covered under the department of pharmaceuticals, a point of contention among many, as experts argue that medical device industry is far diverse from that of pharma, thus deserving a distinct identity for it. Rajiv Nath, forum coordinator of AIMED informed that for resuscitating investment opportunity in the sector it is important to recognize medical devices sector in India under a separate department so that it is treated as separate from drugs.

“Most importantly we want it to be regulated so that it can be harmonised with international practices. While we are thankful to department of pharma for leading a task force and being given the mandate by PMO. As an interim measure, we are requesting the government to rename the department of pharmaceuticals as department of pharmaceutical and medical devices,” he stressed.

This he insisted is essential as medical devices are not drugs. Currently there are only 14 medical devices notified as drugs since 2005, that too as drugs under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. This is incorrect  and incomplete cites experts. They stressed that if wider mandate is to be given to this sector, then this needs to be reflected in actions as well, as these steps can give an encouraging signal to investors to focus on this sector.