Riding on improved industrial environment in the state, the Uttar Pradesh government is mulling special incentives for the pharmaceuticals industry."There has been a marked improvement in perception and 'Brand UP' in fast gaining credibility among investors," Infrastructure and Industrial Development (IIDC) commissioner Mahesh Kumar Gupta said.The commissioner informed this during a meeting with officials of Udyog Bandhu, Drug Administration and Medical and Health department."Time is ripe for promoting specific manufacturing sectors in the state and the government is seriously considering facilitative provisions for pharmaceutical and drugs industry and consultations with stakeholders have already begun," he added.Joint Executive Director of Udyog Bandhu Kanchan Verma said that under the new initiative, apart from other provisions, the focus would be on adoption of good manufacturing practices, technology upgradation, logistics and setting up of more testing labs.Assistant Commissioner, Drug Administration, A.K. Malhotra informed that there were around 450 pharmaceutical units in the state."Most of these units are concentrated in western parts of the state in Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar with thin presence in Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Aligarh and Gorakhpur", he said.According to UP Drugs Manufacturers Association, Uttar Pradesh has nearly 17 per cent market share of national sale with a turnover of about Rs 90,000 crore in pharma sector.Therefore, a special drive to boost the prospects of drug sector in the state with government support is urgently required, the association said.The Uttar Pradesh government had already announced sector-specific policies for industries such as solar, sugar, information technology, electronic manufacturing, poultry promotion, food processing policies besides infrastructure and industrial investment policy.(PTI)
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Pest management services company Hicare has introduced EPK based mosquito control service to keep places free from mosquitoes. Hicare offers professional and scientific pest solutions for homes and office spaces in Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Chennai.Hicare’s pest control service will ensure a complete wipe-out of mosquitoes from your home. You can sign a contract with Hicare for one time or annual treatment plan to keep your abode mosquito free. With the use of world-class and highly advanced technical expertise, Hicare is known to provide a global standard of pest control services that is Safe, Healthy and Trust Worthy to the Indian customers.Hicare has devised a comprehension Mosquito control Service to keep your homes safe from Dengue mosquitoes. It is based on advanced EPK Treatment, which stands for Exclusion of mosquito breeding sources, Prevention of Larvae growth and Killing of adult mosquitoes. The benefits of EPK service are that it uses WHO (World Health Organisation) approved actives, is odourless and is completely safe for you and your family members. Its effect lasts for 60 days and it comes with a discounted price at Rs 1,499.(BW Online Bureau)
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By Haider Ali Khan The government will soon start work on the Rs 2,035 crore National Cancer Institute project, a major public healthcare initiative, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J.P. Nadda said. The prestigious project in Jhajjar, Haryana, will provide 710 beds and offer most advanced care and research in cancer treatment. Delivering the presidential address at the AIIMS convocation in New Delhi on Sunday, Nadda said his ministry is also set to expand the network of medical colleges in the country in a big way. In the first phase it is proposed to upgrade 58 district hospitals to medical colleges while 70 medical colleges are being upgraded by adding superspeciality blocks. This reflects the importance attached by the government to the promotion of high quality tertiary care services and expansion of medical education in the country, the minister said. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who also spoke at the event, said India is in need of more medical colleges to meet the growing need for doctors and paramedics. "The country is capable of producing huge talent of human resources in the medical field, and we need to expand quality medical institutions and medical colleges in the country," Jaitley said. Jaitley also stated that there is a need to look into the policy on organ donation to learn from the best practises across the world, without commercialising it.
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Haider Ali KhanThe Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has identified two major initiatives towards better utilisation of blood and blood components, as part of its commitment to ensure safe blood and enhanced access to blood products, on the recommendation of the National Blood Transfusion Council.The first step is permitting the transfer of blood from one blood bank to another. This was not allowed earlier and will help in transfer of blood to places of scarcity.Detailed guidelines for proper and efficient transport of blood between banks have been prescribed.The second step is fixing of an exchange value for surplus plasma available at some blood banks in the country. In the absence of the enabling provision, surplus plasma was traded or sold by the blood banks without any regulation whatsoever.Now an exchange value of Rs 1600 per litre of plasma has been fixed and the blood banks with surplus plasma can exchange it for consumables, equipments etc. or plasma derived products, as per their need. This exchange, however, cannot be in terms of cash.This step is expected to increase the availability of essential life saving medicines like human albumin, immunoglobulin, clotting factors, etc. which are all derived from plasma. This step would also reduce the country’s dependence on import of these products.The National Blood Transfusion Council under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is the apex body for formulating policy matters pertaining to the organisation, operation, standards and training of a sustainable and safe blood transfusion service for the country, set up under the directions of the Supreme Court of India.
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C H Unnikrishnan Commerce and Industries Minister Nirmala Sitaraman on Thursday (October 15) said India’s first Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy will go for cabinet approval shortly (apparently in the next 30 to 45 days) and the final draft, which was submitted by an IP Think Tank constituted for the purpose, was only an input for the policy. The minister said this while responding to media queries on the leaked policy draft, first reported by www.BW|Businessworld.in on October 13. The final draft of the IPR policy was prepared by a team of experts from the field of judiciary, industry, IP legal and others. This IP Think Tank was chaired by Justice Prabha Sridevan, who was the chairperson of India’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) wherein she delivered laser sharp and accurate decisions and rulings on many of India’s complicated IP disputes. The team submitted its final draft of the policy to the ministry of commerce and industry in April after incorporating comments and suggestions received from public and other stakeholders after keeping the primary draft for their scrutiny. The minister‘s statement now makes it obvious that the final policy will be significantly different from what was prepared by the Think Tank. C H UnnikrishnanNow, there are two key questions that the ministry, which is responsible for formulation and implementation of IP related legislation in the country, needs to answer. One; what are the changes that the government is going to make in the final draft in the next one month before announcing it? Two; why was the final draft not made available to the public nsince April forcing someone to leak it? These questions are key in the current context of India, which is under tremendous pressure from the developed economies to change its existing IPR regime that doesn’t allow frivolous or unsubstantiated monopolies in the domestic market. One wouldn’t know at this juncture that whether the government will heed to this pressure. But, going by the recent commitments (open as well as not very open) that the government has expressed on it to those developed countries just to gain the notional prestige of being the “most investor friendly nation”, it looks that the government may do so. The international pressure to “upgrade” India’s IPR law to global compliance were quite prominent in almost all the bilateral trade talks that India had with the US, European Union and other developed economies in the last few years. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, had also recently emphasised this point by saying, “India’s patent laws should be brought on par with global standards to make Asia’s third largest economy a hub for outsourced creative services.” IP rights are good to encourage research and innovation and thereby support the social progress and the overall economic growth of the country. But, it can also destroy the progress and growth if the rights are not granted fairly and judiciously. Especially, when it comes to essential products and services such as life saving drugs, food and healthcare in a developing economy like India where at least 70 per cent of the population still can’t access modern healthcare and 80 per cent of the population who has access are still not covered by any insurance and poverty death is still a reality. The country’s existing IPR law was formulated some years ago by great visionaries taking all these into consideration. The leaked version of the final draft of the policy has again put enough caution against likely abuse of IP Rights in the Indian context. The so-called global standard, which (to me and any other informed person) is Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and it has also allowed enough provisions to safeguard the members’ rights. And, we also know that India’s existing IP regime is fully complaint to this standard. So, it’s curious to see what shape India’s first IPR Policy will take now after the secret inter-ministerial scrutiny. TRIPS or TRIPS Plus?
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CH UnnikrishnanFertin Pharma AS, part of the Danish pharma-to-confectionary Bagger-Sorensen Group, is entering India by establishing a greenfield manufacturing plant in Goa. A world leader in gum-based anti-smoking products and candies, Fertin will open its new India plant -- its first manufacturing facility outside Europe — for nicotine chewing gum in November to cater to its clients in the entire Asian and other emerging markets. Nicotine chewing gum helps smokers and tobacco users quit the habit. India being a country with some 330 million tobacco users and most affected by tobacco induced health issues including cancer deaths, Fertin see this market as most important in its future growth strategy. Fertin, as a custom manufacturer, will partner with top pharma marketing companies in India and other emerging markets. The company is already a supply partner to top pharma companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Perrigo in its existing markets, especially the US and Europe. “There are quite a few big pharma players, who have shown interest in partnering with us for India and these deals will be formalised before the local plant goes on stream,” said S Ravi Kumar, CEO and MD, Fertin India Ltd. The Danish company, which established a research and development centre in India earlier, has been doing product development for its global customers at its Mumbai centre since 2011. The product development capabilities in the Mumbai centre will be expanded for Indian customers (partners who source finished products from Fertin and selling under their respective brand names). The nicotine chewing gums are prescription products and the two active players in this segment in the local markets include drug maker Cipla and cigarette and consumer staple maker ITC Ltd. The current market for medicated chewing gum is estimated at Rs 75 crore and Cipla has about 80 per cent market share. Fertin’s new facility in Goa, which was set up with an initial investment of Rs 30 crore, will have a manufacturing capacity of 300 tonnes per year. The fully automated plant employs some 35 people at present and it will be almost doubled in the next one year, Ravi Kumar said. The company’s plant in Denmark located at Vejle has a production capacity of 5000 tonnes a year and currently caters to mainly US and European markets. The tobacco cessation products from the company’s Goa plant are expected to be rolled into the Indian market by early next year.
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India, which has dominated the generic drugs industry for decades, is falling behind in the race to make copies of complex biotech drugs, which are expected to generate tens of billions of dollars in sales in the coming years. While Indian firms have launched a few such products on the domestic market, where regulatory barriers are relatively low, they are being overtaken by European, American and South Korean firms in the race to supply lucrative Western markets. Just three Indian groups - Biocon Ltd, Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd and Intas Pharamceuticals Ltd - are working with partners on so-called biosimilars aimed at the United States and Europe. Biotech drugs, which require genetic engineering, account for a growing share of new drugs and the future sales of copycat products will also switch to this category of pharmaceuticals from simple small-molecule pills like aspirin. The global biosimilars market is predicted to have sales of $25 billion by 2020, according to a 2014 Thomson Reuters report. "Biosimilars is a big opportunity," said Sujay Shetty, leader of the life sciences practice at PwC India. "But unlike generics, it is not yet an opportunity (for Indian companies) in the U.S." Copying chemical-based drugs has long been the bedrock of India's $15 billion pharmaceuticals industry. Biotech drugs, however, are more difficult to make and cannot be replicated exactly, which is why regulators have come up with the notion of versions that are similar enough to do the job. That also means regulators will be eagle-eyed on quality, posing a challenge to Indian companies, which have been distracted in recent years by manufacturing problems that have led to some drugs being barred from key overseas markets. Many, including the country's biggest drugmaker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, are still struggling to fix issues at their generic drug factories. 'Far Behind'Biosimilars have been available in India since the early 2000s, well before their 2006 arrival in Europe and the recent introduction of a regulatory pathway in the United States, where the first biosimilar was launched only last month. But India's experience has not been problem-free. Intas, for example, recently received reports of some patients on its biosimilar version of Roche's eye drug Lucentis developing inflammation barely two months after the drug's launch. An Intas spokesman said the problem was found to be in the drug's "cold chain logistics" distribution channel and has restricted supply of the drug. Arun Chandavarkar, the chief executive of Biocon, seen by analysts as the front-runner among Indian firms developing biosimilars, believes the cost and complexity of developing biosimilars will be a deterrent for many Indian players. "At this time, there can't be too many companies willing to put in that much effort and investment," he said. The three Indian companies that have stated plans to make biosimilars for the United States and Europe are all partnered with larger Western firms. Biocon has a tie-up with Mylan Inc and is testing four molecules in global Phase III trials, for which it plans to seek approvals in the United States and Europe starting in fiscal 2017, Chandavarkar said. Dr Reddy's is developing biosimilars such as rituximab and pegfilgrastim for use in cancer treatment under a pact with Germany's Merck KGaA and said it plans to launch its first biosimilar in the United States by 2018. A spokesman at Intas, which developed pegfilgrastim in partnership with Canada's Apotex Inc, told Reuters the company was considering partnering with a Swiss drugmaker to launch the product in the United States. It declined to name the firm. Chandru Chawla, head of Cipla Ltd's new ventures unit, said India's "fundamental disadvantage" over United States, Europe and South Korea was that biotechnology never evolved in India to the extent that chemistry did. "In terms of having the right knowledge ecosystem and the pools of talent, India is far behind," he said. Globally, Western pharmaceutical firms such as Novartis AG; Pfizer Inc, in partnership with South Korea's Celltrion Inc; and Merck & Co with partner Samsung Bioepis, are leading in the race to dominate the Western biosimilars market. "South Korea has made very significant strides in a very short period of time," said Cartikeya Reddy, Dr Reddy's executive vice president for biologics. "In this regard they have indeed pulled ahead of Indian companies." (Reuters)
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CH Unnikrishnan Local drug maker Lupin Ltd and German drug multinational Boehringer Ingelheim on Wednesday (14 October) signed a strategic alliance for co-marketing the latter’s new diabetes management drug linagliptin in India. With this alliance, Lupin will market and sell this Boerhinger drug formulation under a separate brand name Ondero. Boehringer, which has a strong presence in this anti-diabetes therapy segment in the domestic market, will continue to sell its linagliptin under the brand names Trajenta. Both the companies will also co-market the brand extension Ondero Met and TrajentaDuo (a combination of linagliptin and metformin) in India, using their existing field forces dedicated to diabetes portfolio. Anti-diabetes is currently one of the large and fastest growing therapy segment in the Indian pharmaceutical market. This market segment, which grows at a rate of around 20 per cent annually, is estimated to be worth Rs 7,655 crore at present. Lupin is amongst the fastest growing players in the oral anti-diabetes drugs and insulin market. This segment with a 6.44 per cent market share, contributes at least 15 per cent of Lupin’s formulation business revenue in India. “This alliance will help us consolidate our position as a market leader and the fastest growing player in the top 5 in the anti-diabetes segment in India,” said Lupin group president (India formulation business) Shakti Chakraborty. While, Boehringer India managing director Sharad Tyagi said that the partnership with Lupin is aligned with our commitment towards addressing challenges in treatment of chronic ailments like diabetes by providing broader access to innovative medicines in the country. Lupin has similar marketing alliances in diabetes segment with a couple of other foreign drug makers including US pharma and biotechnology major Eli Lilly.
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