The pharmaceutical and healthcare sector of Andhra Pradesh is expected to get an investment of $5 billion from US-India Business Council (USIBC). This is expected to give a big boost to industrial sector of the state in the coming days.  

Diane Farrel, executive vice-president of USIBC in a meeting with Chandra Babu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, has pledged to expand the pharmaceutical and healthcare segments in the state. “We are looking at expanding our presence with an additional investment of $5 billion in Andhra Pradesh. Already Vizag is housing many pharmaceutical companies and our effort will be to expand this into other regions of the state,” said Diane Farrel.

To find out the investment modalities and priorities of the state government, a delegation led by Diane met Naidu and discussed on various issues relating to investment in to pharma and healthcare segment. The delegation included Himanshu Priyadarshi, head corporate affairs of Hospira, Srini Srinivasan, managing director of Hospira, Ashoke Bhattacharjya, former director of global health systems and innovation policy at Johnson & Johnson, Rohit Kumar, senior director, government affairs, Johnson & Johnson, Neelima Dwivedi, senior director of Merck, Mihir Shah, director of Asia Pacific Public Policy, Merck, Singapore, Rajeev Mukundan, senior vice-president – legal, Mylan, Claudia Poteet, senior director, Pfizer, Sharad Goswami, head - public affairs, Pfizer India, Nivedita Mehra, country director, India, USIBC Delhi, Amy Hariani, director & legal policy counsel, USIBC and Michael Green, senior manager, USIBC.

At present Vizag in North Andhra Pradesh is housing Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma city, one of the major Pharma SEZs (special economic zone), housing about 100 leading pharma and biotech companies in the state. Except this, there is no other pharmaceutical base in the state. Though there are a few small bulk drug clusters in Vijayanagaram, Guntur, Tirupati and Ananthapur districts, these clusters are not performing to the expected levels due to various reasons.

Having learned this, the Andhra Pradesh government is also looking for a good investor partner who can give big boost to the pharmaceutical and healthcare segment in the state.

Currently, Mylan the leading bulk drug and formulation manufacturing company, has four facilities in Vizag and another pharma company Hospira has already invested Rs.2500 crore in Visakhapatnam.