New Export Norms for Pharma Sector Soon.

The Centre, in a bid to counter adverse campaign against quality of Indian drugs in some countries, will soon come out with new export regulations for pharma products to trace the source of the exported item.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of pharma CEOs conclave here on Friday, Rajeev Kher, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce, said the move would not only help in tracing and tracking the origin but also make the exporters more cautious.

On mergers and acquisitions in the sector, he said the government was keen that the unique strength of the Indian pharma was not compromised. If they were purely market-driven, the government would not intervene. One of the unique aspects of the Indian pharma industry was that it catered to public health markets of developing countries.

Mr. Kher said agreements were also proposed with SAARC and ASEAN countries for integration of traditional medicine. The Commerce Department was planning to bring the pharma industry and financial institutions into a single platform to sensitise the bankers on the needs of the sector.

Earlier Chief Minister K. Rosaiah, who gave away the export awards, said the Indian pharmaceutical industry was the third largest in the world in terms of volume with a total turnover of $21.04 billion, with a domestic market of $12.26 billion, which was expected to touch $20 billion by 2015. Expressing happiness that India's pharma exports have grown from $3.8 billion to $8.9 billion, he said the share of exports to regulated countries was more which showed the growing confidence of India's capabilities.

Pharmexcil Chairman Smitesh Shah said recent research showed that 70 per cent of the incremental growth in global pharma markets would come from emerging markets of Brazil, India, Russia, China, Turkey, Mexico and South Korea. The similarity among these countries would enable India to understand these rapidly growing markets better.

S. M. Jharwal, Chairman, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority; R. P. Meena, DG, Drugs and Copy Rights; B. P. Acharya, Principal Secretary, Industries; and Stefan Borgas, CEO, Lonza AG, Switzerland, also spoke.

Source : thehindu.com