Expansion for pharma industry
The National Institute of Public Financing and Policy (NIPFP) is ready to kickstart a Rs 3,000-crore venture capital fund to strengthen the pharma infrastructure and give a fillip to drug discovery in India.
This was announced here on Monday by Ashok Kumar, secretary, department of pharmaceuticals, while inaugurating a National Convention on Biopharma, organised by the department of pharmaceuticals and Ficci in association with the department of biotechnology.
Mr Kumar said that his department would seriously look at the industry’s demand for a single regulatory authority to do away with multiple regulatory bodies. “Priority would also be accorded to building the capacity of intellectual property offices for approval and rejection of patents,” the secretary emphasised.
On this occasion, Mr Kumar released the ‘Vision 2020” paper on a bio pharma strategy for India, prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers and ABLE.
The paper highlighted that the biopharma market in India was growing at 15 per cent annually. By 2020, the market was expected to be worth over $200 billion, driven by a shift in usage from conventional drugs to biopharma products, including biosimilars and a new generation of biotherapeutics.
The document emphasised the need to build on Protein Characterisation Laboratories and GLP-Certified Animal Study Facilities and to create a National Animal Breeding Facility.
It further stated that if India was to become the world leading provider of affordable biopharmaceutical products by 2020, it should aim to have at least 10 original biologics on the local market and at least two on the global market by 2020.
Additional funds to the tune of an $1billion must be made available by the government over the next 10 years to provide for these activities.
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