The pharma equipment manufacturing industry in India is slowly making its ground to improve its capacities and capabilities to manufacture high end, most modern equipments required for pharma, healthcare and laboratory and research sectors and subsequently substitute the growing imports from foreign countries.

While delving their opinion on the growing imports of pharmaceutical raw materials and machinery equipments from abroad, Dr. Rao, Vadlamudi, president of Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) said, “The growth of overall pharmaceutical industry in India is sure to see the growth of its ancillary and related sectors. Among them the pharmaceutical and healthcare equipment manufacturing sectors are also sure to grow. As already the state and central governments are pro-actively promoting setting up of medical devices and pharma machinery equipment parks across different parts of India like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It is for sure that India will become self sufficient and self reliant and definitely will substitute its imports in a big way.”

As already Indian industry is worried and devising strategies to reduce its over dependence on China for imports of APIs and KSMs, the governments both at the state and centre are also encouraging equipment manufacturers to set up their bases in India and giving a push to manufacture within the country as part of the ‘Make in India’ strategy. “As already Indian pharma industry is poised to grow at 12-15 per cent in the next two to three years, the pharma machinery and other related sectors will also grow and achieve self reliance. For instance to make the pharmaceutical drug manufacturing industry more self reliant particularly in the API space and reduce over dependence on imports we have set up an innovation desk and set up a committee with members from leading government institutions like CSIR, IICT, policy makers from the government and the industry who are continuously interacting to device long term strategies. With continuous government support, we are optimistic that very soon the pharmaceutical industry will gain self reliance in all aspects and become a major exporter of pharma as well as machinery products,” informed Madan Mohan, chairman of Pharmexcil, while taking part at Pharmlytica two-day conference in Hyderabad.

However, according to A.V.P.S Chakravarthi, managing director and chief executive officer of Ecoblis, as the pharma machinery and medical equipment manufacturing industry is just grounding in India it is too early to say that Indian companies will stop importing products from abroad. “India though has started slow will grow big in the equipment manufacturing space. But at present the Industry is still depending on imports for high end most modern equipments required for the pharmaceutical industry,” observed Chakravarthy.

At present the state and central governments as part of its ‘make in India’ strategy has already started setting up medical equipment and pharmaceutical machinery manufacturing parks in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Recently in June, the Telangana state government launched a Medical devices park over 200 acres at Sultanpur on outskirts of Hyderabad and even allocated land to 10 firms manufacturing 14 medical devices related to ultrasound scans, implants for orthopaedic, neurological, dialysis etc to set up the factories.

Similarly the AP government had also allocated land and started a medical equipment manufacturing park and invited investors to set up their bases in the state. The state of Gujarat is also far ahead in the pharma machinery and medical equipment manufacturing sector. “As industry grows new innovator companies will come in the manufacturing sector and India has a huge scope of growth in this segment. And Hyderabad with already sound in bulk drugs and having strong healthcare base it is a fast growing market for the pharma and healthcare equipment manufacturers,” says Yogesh Mudras, Managing Director of UBM, while talking at the inaugural session of Pharmalytica event in Hyderabad.