Prime Minister Narendra Modi will soon roll out the new bulk drug pharma policy which will be industry-friendly and remove all the existing irritants and prevailing ills that have overtaken the pharma sector in the last few years, vastly restricting its growth, said secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals, Dr. V K Subburaj.

Addressing a “PharmaMed-2014: Healing the World” under the aegis of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently, Dr. Subburaj also clarified that land acquisition is not at all an issue to set up special parks for manufacturing medical devices and increase drug production in India as the government has vast land bank pool and surplus land from ailing public sector drug units which will be used for making the proposed special parks.

Elaborating on the proposed bulk drug pharma policy, the secretary said, “the Committee and task force set up by the government for preparing the policy have finalised their recommendations and gone to the Prime Minister's office that are being examined there.  Since Prime Minister Modi attaches so much of importance to the sector and is keen to shape it up to meet its future growth both in terms of production and exports, he will release it himself in the next two week’s time at the most”.

Without divulging a great deal of salient features of the policy, Dr. Subburaj said that it would have multiple concessions and doll outs for all stakeholders of the pharmaceutical sector so that it is put on the growth trajectory, matching its potential as the government realizes that it has done little for the sector and that whatever growth it has clocked, the credit entirely went to the private sector.

With the policy, falling on public domain, the pharma sector which was of 1.8 lakh crores size at present is likely to rise by 4-5 times in next 5-7 years with both its domestic production and exports rising phenomenally, said Dr. Subburaj.

According to him, the land acquisition would not come on the way of setting up of special pharma parks as the ailing IDPL alone has 2,000 acre of land at its possession which the government will acquire for the purpose.  There are other such land escapes at the command of other public sectors pharma units that could be used to fulfil the objective of creation of pharma parks.

Drug Controller General, Dr. G N Singh later in his address added that the regulator was addressing all pending issues hanging on the wall since 1940 to liberate and completely decontrol the pharma sector as also simplifying the export regulations on it which will reflect in the forthcoming policy.

Earlier, the chairman, Health Committee of the Chamber, Pradeep Multani demanded a level playing ground for pharma sector so that its growth is facilitated and potential realised without any delay and welcomed the announcement for the new bulk drug pharma policy as it would transform the sector to the desired scales.