Cambodia based Indian marketing company, Pluton Lifesciences Ltd is planning to step up import of medicines and other pharmaceutical products from India. This year the company plans to increase the target to 2 million US dollar.

For this, Pluton has signed agreements with several pharma exporters from south India, said its managing director, Dr Ashutosh Garg.

Dr Garg was in Chennai last week to attend the pharma trade expo and buyer-seller meet organised by TN IDAM and Pharmexcil.

In an interview with Pharmabiz, he said his company also plans to import traditional medicines from India to introduce them to the ASEAN countries. Pluton has business ties with pharma marketers of all the countries in the south east Asian region.

“There are very few local manufacturing companies in Cambodia and the nearby ASEAN countries. These are potential export markets for Indian pharma manufacturers. In Cambodia alone, there are about 200 marketers and distributors. Indian marketing companies like Pluton have good footprints in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Brunei and other south east Asian countries. Currently, these companies import pharmaceuticals mostly from US, Europe and Korea. But all of them want to have tie up with Indian companies,” said Dr Garg.

He said even though Cambodia depends on other countries for drugs,  the enforcement system in the country is strong. Inspections in all retail pharmacies are conducted every week and the regulatory body takes stringent action against those dealing in spurious or substandard drugs. Cambodia is following ASEAN guidelines for regulating drugs supply. He said Cambodian government is not promoting pharma industry there. They only prefer imported drugs.

All the retail pharmacies have qualified pharmacists and the medicines are sold as per prescription by physicians. There are about 1500 retail pharmacies in the country. Pharmacy colleges conduct diploma in pharmacy course.

To a query he said people of Cambodia like herbal drugs. So he wants to import Ayurveda medicines from Kerala and Siddha drugs from Tamil Nadu. The company intends to establish an ayurvedic spa in Cambodia.