NEW DELHI: The government will be creating a separate ministry for pharmaceutical in the next one year and is soon going to implement the Katoch panel recommendations to cut bulk drug imports from China.
“I want to see that pharmaceutical and medical devices become a separate ministry and we are already in touch with Prime Minister’s Office and we are pursuing that it becomes a separate ministry. I assure you in next one year you will emerge as a separate entity as pharma and medical devices ministry,” Ananth Kumar, Chemicals and Fertiliser Minister said on Wednesday.
He added that in order to benefit the domestic pharma industry, the Government plans to implement the recommendations by the Katoch Committee in the next 100 days.
The Fertiliser Minister said that the government is working to set up pharma parks, bulk drug parks and medical devices parks.
These will help in getting affordable and unencumbered large parcels of land and common facilities for the industry, thereby reducing the manufacturing costs by 30 per cent which will make Indian pharma industry competitive in the world.
The government had set set up a committee headed by V M Katoch, secretary, health research, to suggest ways to reduce the dependence on bulk drug imports from China. India currently meets about 80 per cent of its demand of bulk drugs or API, used as raw materials by the pharmaceutical industry, from Chinese imports.
On the inverted duty structure hampering the pharma and medical devices industries, the Minister said the government has been following up the issue for the last one-and-a-half years.
“I will lead the delegation and we will put forth the concerns of the industry regarding this inverted duty structure,” he added.
On price control mechanism, he said, checking the prices of medicines is essential to make them affordable for the common masses.