The insight is, to boost a sustainable collaborative support for technology transfer with private sector in healthcare, and for that purpose to develop a healthy PPP in R&D for Drug Discovery, Surgical Device Inventions, Diagnostic tools discovery, Research in bacteria, pathogens etc, etc.

The government’s success story in pharmaceuticals is based on a vibrant private sector manufacturing and processes. Currently, the R&D in healthcare sector is majorly carried out by the private sector giants, with a view to ensuring inclusive healthcare. Sudip Bandopadhyay, minister of state for health and family welfare, at the recent Life Sciences Conclave, hosted by the Confederation of India Industries (CII), acknowledged that the pharmaceutical industry has made good progress both in quantum and quality during the past few decades.

In terms of volume India is the third largest producer of quality bulk drugs and the 14th in term of value. The growth is about 12 per cent to 14 per cent annually. Valuewise it is Rs 1 lakh crore or US$20 billion. Of this, India exports worth of US$8.5 billion of quality bulk drugs, which include the generic drugs too. The export growth rate is about 10 per cent annually.

One great news in these figures is that India is able to produce bulk generic drugs at competitive rates in the world market, particularly in biotech products, vaccines, and some third generation drugs which require sophisticated manufacturing processes. With over 60,000 generic brands, from around 800 producers, India lacks only in R&D to meet the global standards, always. Even then the success has been possible because India has the largest number of USFDA-approved manufacturing facilities outside the USA.

Increased participation of the government in getting the CRs adequately done will help in price control. There are some fundamental issues, we need to look into seriously.

First the Clinical Research (CR), which is the most important stage in Drug Discovery. The CR today is risked by cost-escalation as it is prolonged very often. By the time the drug is approved, invariably the cost-benefits vanish. Being an IT hub with most sophisticated capabilities in computers, India has to do effective collaboration with private sector companies to carry out the sophisticated cost-effective CRs.

Second, collaborations cannot be effective without adequate intuitive ideas, as rightly identifies Y K Gupta, Pharmacology Department Head at AIIMS.

Third, there have not been enough CRs for discovering drugs to handle kalazar, TB, and non-communicable diseases, which are gray areas even today.

Fourth, cases of poor patients facing treatment refusal are increasing every year. This is mainly due to cost-escalation of therapy and medicines and almost absence of insurance cover. In India, hardly 4 per cent of the population enjoy insurance cover of any type. Effective CRs can come to their relief.

For India, situation is also ripe to take a step forward to take the first position in the quality bulk drug production, as about 61 drugs will soon go off-patent at the USPTO within two years time. Again this has to be the private sector pharmas to take the lead. They have already taken the country to be among the top 10 global pharmaceutical markets in terms of sales, and it is expected that by 2020 the total sale would hit US$50 billion mark.

Indeed, Indian R&D has been accepted in the international world of research and clinical trials, despite occasional slump due to shift of R&D southward, due to inadequate investment climate in India. This is the compulsion of the government to come forward to help the private sector R&D. (IPA Service)