The high-powered Task Force on 'Enabling the private sector to lead the growth of pharmaceutical sector', constituted by the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) in November last year, has recommended several export-import trade promotions for the private sector to lead the growth of pharmaceutical industry in the country.

The Task Force, headed by secretary, DoP, has recommended joint funding of schemes for collaboration in pharmaceutical sector. In this connection, the Task Force asked the DoP to come up with a scheme for new drug development for diseases prevalent in countries
importing Indian drugs.

Recommending some financial assistance in form of soft loan or interest subsidy, the Task Force further asked the DoP to launch a scheme for giving financial assistance which may be provided for upgradation of selected pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities including bio-pharmaceuticals to the highly regulated markets of US (US FDA), Europe (European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines, EDQM), Australia (Therapeutic Goods Administration TGA, Australia), United Kingdom (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, MHRA) and other international markets to enable global generics and biosimilars capabilities.

For the domestic market, the Task Force recommended increased funding support to early stage entrepreneurs in pharma sector. In this regard, it asked the DoP to come up with a scheme to provide seed capital and facilitation with other financial institutes to the MSME sector. It further recommended financial assistance in the form of soft loan or interest subsidy. “Financial assistance may be provided for upgradation to WHO-GMP and higher international standard requirements which are now increasingly required for making the SMEs sustain in an increasingly competitive and demand driven manufacturing environment,” the Task Force said in its recommendation which was submitted to the government recently.

In yet another recommendation for financial and technical assistance to improve financial sustainability of SMEs, the Task Force recommended a cluster scheme to provide financial assistance to SME sector in PPP mode for creation of common facilities and also safeguard the environment from the hazards associated with the unplanned growth of the industry.

“The growth of the Indian pharmaceutical industry over the past few decades has predominantly arisen from manufacturing generic drugs for exports and domestic use. DoP may come up with a pharmaceutical specific venture fund, for channelising public resources into drug design, discovery and development,” the Task Force in its recommendation further said.