C.H. Unnikrishnan US drug maker Abbott Laboratories, which invested at least Rs 25,600 crore ($4 billion) in India in the last five years including the acquisition of domestic drug formulation business of erstwhile Piramal Healthcare and setting up a brand new nutritional products manufacturing unit in Gujarat, is planning to make additional investments in the country across its various business verticals. The fresh investments will include a new integrated corporate office at Mumbai’s new business hub Bandra-Kurla Complex and expansion in research and development and manufacturing. The US healthcare group currently operates in the areas of drugs and pharmaceuticals, health and nutrition products and diagnostics and healthcare devices in India. Abbott said on Wednesday (September 30) that it plans to invest in a new Mumbai corporate office in the Godrej BKC building in the Bandra-Kurla Complex that will allow it to consolidate existing offices and operations in Mumbai into a single location. The group also intends to expand manufacturing capacity and research and development capability, employee development and community programs in India. The group did not disclose the total amount of the new investments that it intends to put in the country now. “India is one of the most important places in the world for Abbott, and we’re investing here accordingly,” Abbott global chairman and chief executive officer Miles D. White said in a Wednesday statement. “We intend to be a strong, committed, and contributing part of India’s future,” White added. Abbott has been present in India for more than 100 years and employs about 14,000 people in the country at present, with a total sales turnover of about Rs 7,000 crore. India is among the top three countries in sales for the company, which has invested in three manufacturing facilities (Goa and Baddi for pharmaceuticals, and Jhagadia in Gujarat for nutrition) and two research and development facilities (Mumbai for pharmaceuticals and Bangalore for nutrition). Abbott’s new investments in India will be mainly for the 4,00,000 sq ft. office space housing at least 1,500 employees, infrastructure and staff at both its pharmaceutical and nutrition research facilities to drive innovations and new product introductions in India and expansion of capacity at the pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Baddi. The consolidation of existing offices and operations will bring together all of Abbott’s businesses in Mumbai into one location. Abbott anticipates occupying the building starting in 2016. The company is investing in a leadership pipeline and skill-building and development of its employees, Abbott said. It will also expand its pharmaceutical development facility in Mumbai for developing new solutions for people across the rest of the world. Through expansion of capacity at the pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Baddi, Abbott is working to meet growing needs in India and also export branded generic pharmaceuticals to other emerging markets in Southeast Asia and Africa.
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India has decided to delay implementation of bigger health warnings on tobacco packaging by a year until April 2016, as pressure mounts on New Delhi to take urgent steps to reduce tobacco consumption which kills up to 900,000 people a year.India last year said 85 percent of a cigarette packet's surface should be covered in health warnings, up from about 20 percent now. But the rules, originally to be enforced from April this year, were deferred after a parliamentary panel said it was reviewing how the industry will be impacted.Anti-tobacco campaigners question the panel's decision to delay implementing bigger warnings, pointing out that one member of the committee owns a tobacco company. Two members have said there is no link between tobacco and cancer.The tobacco industry in India has labelled the packaging rules "drastic" and "impractical". Thousands of companies manufacture and sell cigarettes in India, with ITC Ltd and Godfrey Phillips among the leading players.New Delhi was under pressure to act after the high court in Rajasthan in July asked the central government to immediately enforce the new rules.Health ministry officials said the latest directive, issued late on Monday, was to comply with the court ruling, but more time was being sought to allow the industry to change its packaging norms."Court order implementation is not feasible considering there are existing stocks in the market with old warnings," said a health ministry official, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.India ranks 136th out of 198 countries that use health warnings to deter smokers, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.Seema Gupta, an official at the Voluntary Health Association of India, said activists were unsure if the new rules will actually be implemented from April."This seems to be a face-saving strategy to say something to the court," she said.(Reuters)
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CH Unnikrishnan With India-US bilateral talks over economic and commercial relationship being scheduled on Monday (28 September) when Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets President Obama, the Indian pharmaceutical industry and healthcare action groups are on their toes as the US side is expected to put pressure for dilution of India’s intellectual property laws. Although the agenda for the top leaders’ meeting has no mention of intellectual property law in particular, there have been alerts from the industry and commercial bodies from both the sides to take up the issue during the bilateral talk. A team of US law makers and industry representatives had last week written to the US administration to use the upcoming US-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue to advocate market-based reforms in India. This included a demand to take up issues such as inadequate intellectual property right protection, forced localisation, non-science-based agriculture barriers and high tariffs for American exports to the Indian market. Some of the key concerns, that the US industry lobby and trade groups have been raising on India’s intellectual property law, are the absence of data exclusivity for patented drugs and patent linkage for drug approvals in India. But, the Indian drug industry and healthcare groups have time and again cautioned the government about the dangers of these two provisions on the access of healthcare to Indian patients. Last week, US senate finance committee chairman Orrin Hatch, ranking member Ron Wyden, House Ways and Means chairman Paul Ryan and ranking member Sandy Levin had written to state secretary John Kerry and finance secretary Penny to ensure that there is ample pressure on the Indian government to modify its IP law to reflect the needed changes. In response to this latter, the local pharmaceutical industry lobby, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), had cautioned the Indian government to take a firm stand in support of its present policy in relation to its IP law, mainly data exclusivity and patent linkages. The IPA, in a letter to industry and commerce minister Nirmala Sitaraman, had prompted the government to take a strong position backing India's IP laws, even by pushing the US to take a look at its own laws concerned with intellectual property rights. The Indian industries had even earlier raised concerns on the mounting pressure from the US to dilute India’s patent laws. Indian patent law currently do not allow market exclusivity (patent protection) to drugs, which are extension of known molecules unless they demonstrate higher therapeutics efficacy compared to the earlier version as it would result in frivolous patenting. The local law hasn’t also brought in extended data exclusivity period for drugs and linkage of the patent status to drug approval as it may delay the entry of cheaper generic drugs. The Indian industry and healthcare groups fear that any dilution in the current law in India as far as intellectual property protection would result in treatment access issues in a country like India where more than 70 per cent of the population still do not have proper access to modern medicines and large majority of the country’s population are still covered by medical insurance. The healthcare action groups including Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) and Doctors Without Borders have also raised concerns about India being pressurised to dilute its intellectual property law as it many poor countries who depend on cheaper generic medicines from India may suffer if India grants frivolous patents for drugs and pharmaceuticals.
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The US Food and Drug Administration has revoked an approval issued in March to India's Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company Ltd (SPARC) to launch a drug for seizures, citing manufacturing quality problems at its production site. The move comes as a setback to SPARC, the research arm of India's largest drugmaker, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. The drug, Elepsia XR, was its first to receive an FDA approval. The company said in June it had been working "very aggressively" to find partners for the product. It had had "some advanced discussions" and aimed to launch the drug by the second half of fiscal 2016. Analysts estimated modest sales of about $50 million annually from Elepsia XR. SPARC had said it would produce the drug at Sun Pharma's Halol plant, in Gujarat, as an adjunct treatment for partial onset seizures in epilepsy patients of 12 years and older. Most analysts saw the approval as positive mainly because it came despite the FDA having expressed concerns a year ago about manufacturing processes at the Halol plant. Sun Pharma had been working on fixing the issues the FDA outlined and some analysts said the approval allayed fears of a possible adverse FDA action at Halol. On Saturday, SPARC said the FDA issued it a "Complete Response Letter" in which it said "the compliance status of the manufacturing facility was not acceptable on the date of approval". It said Sun Pharma "has taken several corrective measures" to fix problems at the plant. (Reuters)
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Paramita ChatterjeeMedanta Medicity, a super-specialty hospital promoted by Naresh Trehan, plans to expand its footprint in the domestic market with hospitals in states like Lucknow, Noida and Patna. In the second tranche of expansion, it plans to hit areas in northeast as it looks take regenerative and transfusion medicine to areas where these facilities are not currently present, said Trehan, Chairman and Managing Director at Medanta Medicity. Medanta, which is funded by private equity giant Carlyle and Singapore's state investment company Temasek, recently forayed into Indore and Ranchi and launched multi-super specialty hospitals with 150 and 130 beds, respectively. The Indian healthcare sector has some of the best and worst of what the world’s systems have to offer. As per a new book on healthcare by Mark Britnell, Chairman of KPMG Global Health, “In Search of the Perfect Health System,” which is slated to hit the Indian stores next month, there is a huge gap between demand and supply in the healthcare sector at the moment. Consider this: Of 1.2 billion population in the country, only around 300 million have any kind of health insurance. As per a chapter dedicated to India, the country currently spends very little on healthcare – just 4 per cent of GDP or $61 per person per year. What’s adding to healthcare woos is the paucity of doctors, nurses and support staff across the country. As per a 2014 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), India’s bed density is the lowest among the BRIC nations, while 70 per cent of the available beds are concentrated in the top 20 cities alone. As per the same report, domestic healthcare infrastructure requires an additional 6.5 lakh beds that is also expected to throw up investment opportunities for risk capital investors such as private equity and venture capital firms. “All indicators reflect that the current situation is way below what ideally should be,” said Trehan, adding “human capital is a big problem today and there is a long gestation period that one needs to work on.” However, even in the current situation where resources are scarce, the government, hospitals and NGOs can work together instead of operating in silos in putting things in place. “There should be a synergy in the way all three operate,” he added. Medicity plans to launch its wellness section soon on the World Heart where people can walk in and map their lives and lifestyles.
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Healthcare is highly-targeted and increasingly vulnerable as the next wave of connected devices hits an already complex technology environment, releaved Websense Security Labs™ 2015 Healthcare Drill-Down Report.The healthcare industry sees 340 per cent more security incidents and attacks than the average industry and, as a result, is more likely to be impacted by data theft: Medical information is 10 times more valuable on the black market making healthcare a major target for cybercriminals. The proliferation of electronic health records creates a data-heavy environment, while networks comprising thousands of providers present an enormous attack surface.“The rapid digitization of the healthcare industry, when combined with the value of the data at hand, has lead to a massive increase in the number of targeted attacks against the sector,” said Carl Leonard, Raytheon|Websense principal security analyst. “While the finance and retail sectors have long honed their cyber defenses, our research illustrates that healthcare organizations must quickly advance their security posture to meet the challenges inherent in the digital economy – before it becomes the primary source of stolen personal information.”In 2014, Websense identified a 600 per cent increase in cyber-attacks against hospitals within a 10-month period. As a follow up to this discovery, Raytheon|Websense Security Labs recently examined the real-world attack telemetry against healthcare, uncovering new intelligence about the most prolific and effective cyber-attack tools, techniques and security trends impacting the industry.Healthcare is 4.5 times more likely to be impacted by Cryptowall and three times more likely to be impacted by Dyre: First used to target the financial sector successfully stealing hundreds of millions of dollars, new exploit capabilities make Dyre malware a significant data loss threat for healthcare organizations worldwide, while Cryptowall encrypts and holds hostage critical healthcare data for ransom.(BW Online Bureau)
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Digital healthcare startup Practo, on Thursday (24 September) announced the acquisition of rival firm Qikwell, a leader in appointment scheduling at hospitals for an unrevealed amount. The company said that with the acquisition, Practo becomes the world’s largest appointment booking platform with nearly 40 million appointments managed every year. Shashank ND, Founder & CEO, Practo said, “This is our 4th acquisition in the last 5 months. We continue our mission to help simplify and digitize healthcare globally and make Practo your health app. I am very pleased to welcome Krishna, Ragavendra and the Qikwell team to Practo. Practo has been the pioneer in digital health and with this acquisition Practo now becomes the world’s leading appointment management platform.” He further added, “Over the coming months, we will continue our aggressive expansion and as build the world’s leading healthcare technology platform.” Practo started its aggressive strategy in April when it acquired digital fitness solution provider Fitho, followed by Genii in July and Insta Health earlier this month. The Bengaluru-based company raised $ 90 million from a group of investors like Tencent, Google Capital and Sequoia India, taking its total rose funding to $ 125 million. Qikwell started in 2011, by Krishna Prasad Chitrapura and Raghavendra Prasad TS at present has over 100 employees and offers appointment in 250 Hospitals in 19 cities. It also has over 6000+ top doctors across in leading hospitals like Apollo, Fortis and Narayana Hrudalaya. The company will continue to be led by its founders, added the statement. “Qikwell is thrilled to join Practo in our quest to enable digital healthcare worldwide. We share the same passion, vision and commitment to customers in offering great products. We chose Practo over some other options because together we can offer superior, comprehensive and integrated solutions.” - said Chitrapura.(BW Online Bureau)
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For every student with admiration for healthcare as a profession, pharmacy as an option is of worth consideration. Pharmacy deals with discovery, development and use of medication for patient's care. Pharmaceutical Industry is valued at Rs 1,00,000 crore and annually growing at 12 per cent. It is the third largest in volume and 13th largest in domestic consumption value. It offers high opportunities of growth in the field of commercial roles, R & D and clinical studies/ trials. India is recognized as global hub for manufacturing, R & D work and clinical trials of new molecules. With advances in genetic engineering technology, biosimilars such as human insulin for diabetes, monoclonal antibodies for cancer treatment, have emerged having value of more than $5 billion per brand.During graduation course in pharmacy, B.Pharm, a detailed journey of API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient) from its synthesis till marketing to the consumers in the finished form such as tablet, syrup, injectable or topical formulations is studied in detail. The core courses such as Pharmaceutics, Pharmacology, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmacognosy, Pharmaceutical Analysis provide insights into properties of API, its action on the body, its role in various diseases, adverse drug reactions, various dosage forms, their standardisation, isolation of active constituents from plants and their characterisation, etc.With in-depth knowledge of various diseases and drugs for their treatment, a pharmacist has career options in fields such as Production, formulation development, Analytical method development, Quality Control, Quality Assurance, Medico-marketing, Herbal Drug Development of the pharmaceutical Industry. By upgrading the skills in IPR, patents, regulatory guidelines, one can pursue career in patent or regulatory affairs department of industry. For those having interest in the business side of pharma industry, options in sales and marketing remain open after acquiring a post graduation qualification in management. For jobs in Research and development (R & D), a qualification of Masters or doctorate in Pharmacy with specialisation in one of the core areas is highly desirable. Specialisation in molecular biology at post graduation, equips you with research in biotechnology based products such as human insulin for diabetes or monoclonal antibodies for treatment of cancer. There are many job opportunities for a pharmacist in Clinical Research sector for testing a new drug or its formulation in humanbeing.Career ProspectsThe job avenues for a pharmacist are open in public and private sector. They are mostly absorbed in by government hospitals and health care departments. Besides they have also ample avenues in private hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. They can also work in pharmaceutical industries. Various government departments like Railways and Defense also recruit pharmacists in their departmental hospitals.Appointments are also available in sale promotion work as medical representatives. M.pharm or Ph.D holders are normally absorbed in research work, to develop new useful drugs, in laboratories and in production work in pharmaceutical industry and analyzing them for purity and strength. Pharmacist may also take up teaching as a profession as lectures in pharmacy colleges and universities.RemunerationPharmacists get reasonable salary in government and private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic laboratories etc. The average starting salary of a pharmacists ranges between Rs.6000 - 10000 per month in hospitals and in clinics. Those working in private hospitals and clinics have more income than those of government employees. Those who are doing private practice are earning handsome returns depending upon their skill and popularity. Those working in private sector pharmaceutical companies have basic pay of Rs 12000 to Rs 20000 depending upon qualification and experiences. Medical Representatives are earning on an average Rs 10000 to Rs 15000 per months.The author, Dr Supriya Shidhaye, is Principal, VES College of Pharmacy, Mumbai
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