A day-long meet on draft pharmaceutical policy is called by department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) on August 30 in New Delhi to discuss key aspects of the policy with representative bodies of pharmaceutical industry and trade.

Representatives from IPA, IDMA, BDMA, FOPE, OPPI, CIPI, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, CII, PHD, Pharmexcil, AIDAN, Nathealth, Prayas, Consumer Connexion, LOCOST, JSA, AIOCD, AICDF, Consumer India have been invited for the conference.

The inaugural session of the  meet will be addressed by Sudhansh Pant, joint secretary of DoP, Jai Priye Prakash, secretary of DoP, CK Mishra, secretary of ministry of health and family welfare, Ramesh Abhishek, secretary of department of industrial policy and promotion, Rita Teaotia, secretary, department of commerce, Ajay Narayan Jha, secretary, ministry of environment, forests and climate change, Bhpendra Singh, chairman of National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, RajneeshTingal, joint secretary of DoP.

Divided into four sessions, the symposium will feature eight roundtable discussions on varied issues pertaining to pharmaceutical sector. The first session will have roundtable discussion on “Understanding and analyzing the extent of India's dependence on imports for key APIs (especially from China) followed by another roundtable discussion on “environmental issue”.

The second session will also have two roundtable discussions on “Quality standards for exports of pharmaceutical products” and “R&D, drug discovery and innovation of new molecules” followed by roundtable discussions on “Contract/loan licensing manufacturing” and “Promotion of generic formulations” in third session. The fourth session will witness roundtable discussions on two contentious issues in pharma segment such as “Intellectual property rights issues” and “Pricing aspects including functioning of NPPA”.