The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilizers has asked the Department of Pharmaceutical (DoP) to expedite the process to set up the National Centre for Research and Development in Bulk Drugs at NIPER, Hyderabad.

“The Department has stated that in order to encourage pharmacy innovation and research and development, the proposals - one relating to enhance the national potential for Drug Discovery and Innovation and the second regarding setting up of a National Centre for R&D in bulk drugs at Hyderabad NIPER, are under examination in the Department. In view of the foregoing, the Committee hope that the aforesaid proposals would be vigorously pursued,” a recent report by the panel said.

“The Committee had noted that the imports of ‘Medicinal and Pharmaceuticals Products’ had risen by 29.43 per cent in the year 2011-12 as compared to the previous year. Although the country is almost self-sufficient in production of most of formulations/ pharmaceuticals products, imports were resorted to on quality and economic considerations,” the report said.

It is learnt that the in-principle approval for the centre had been given by the Planning Commission, but the clearance from the Standing Finance Committee (SFC) was yet to be secured. The SFC wanted to know the synergy between the NIPER and proposed Centre, revenue generation projects, recurring expenditure and the phasing of construction. The next meeting of the SFC is likely to clear the project as the DoP is gathering the required inputs for the consideration of the committee, sources said.

The centre, proposed to be set up at a cost of Rs.56 crore as per the current estimates, would aim at development of technologies and process for cost competitiveness, environmental impact management, risk management and development of safety in manufacturing operations, and knowledge transfer platform between industry and academia. The research avenues for bulk drugs would be drugs process innovation, drug discovery and development, analytical chemistry, process engineering, cleaner technology, polymorphism, nanotechnology, etc., according to the project report.