Dec. 10 - India has successfully decoded the human genome locally making it part of the only six countries in the world to do so.
Other countries who have been able to accomplish the feat are the United States, United Kingdom, China, Canada and South Korea. India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) says the breakthrough will allow pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs more attuned with Indian physiology. Read the rest of this entry »
Sept. 30 - India’s pharmaceutical and fine chemicals exports rose by 29 percent Rs 39,538 compared to the previous year, said Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, said Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Anand Sharma during the inauguration of the Indo-Africa Pharma Business last week.
The sector reported a compounded annual growth rate of 17.8 percent during the five-year period 2003-04 to 2007-08 reports The Hindu. “The growing exports of India in African countries are causing concern in multinational companies who have started a false campaign that the Indian generic medicines are counterfeit and substandard. This has to be countered effectively,” Sharma said. Read the rest of this entry »
Aug. 11 - India is expected to become a pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) hub in the next decade with the Department of Pharmaceuticals planning a road map for India to be a global player in the industry by 2020.
The plan is called Vision 2020. The department also plans to create a job of about five lakh in this industry in coming years and to contribute to the growth of India’s GDP.
For this, the government aims to make an annual expenditure of up to US$20 billion every year until 2020. Apart from this several R&D hubs are also being built in cities like Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata. There are plans to build a high-tech pharma city in Hyderabad on 800 to 900 acres of land.
Aug. 7 - India is planning to file a World Trade Organization complaint that accuses the European Union of allowing multinational pharmaceutical companies to use the bloc’s strict patent laws to detain Indian generic drugs in transit to developing countries, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Since last year, customs officials in the Netherlands and Germany have seized Indian medicines on grounds that the broke EU patent laws. Indian pharmaceutical companies have been forced to pay more to move shipments to transit hubs outside the EU as well as hire legal help to allow the drugs shipped to their destination.
By Vikas Srivastava
Jun. 18 - The government of India is implementing more initiatives to attract more foreign direct investment in its petroleum, chemicals and petrochemical sectors by establishing specific investment regions for this.
The Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemical Investment Regions (PCPIRs) will be established in the state of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. The government plans to set up investment regions which will offer foreign and domestic players networking and a common infrastructure of services to provide cost benefit opportunities suitable for new ventures and leading to growth in production, exports and job creation.
Jun. 9 - New Delhi has lodged a protest to the Chinese mission in Nigeria and China’s foreign trade ministry because of a large seizure of fake anti-malarial generic pharmaceuticals labeled “Made in India” were actually found to have been produced in China
The findings were reported by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) of Nigeria in a press release.
India’s Commerce Ministry sources told The Times of India: “We have had many complaints about such fake drugs from China being offloaded as Indian drugs in countries like Ghana, South Africa, Ivory Coast and West Africa — in general, where India has a substantial market share. But so far there has been no formal complaint. This is the first time that such a large international consignment has been seized and this will be taken up strongly with the Chinese side.”
Jan. 30 - After the U.S., France and Russia, Canada and the UK plan to sign nuclear deals with India. Officials from the nuclear power industry of the United Kingdom and Canada lead by their high-profile ministers - British secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform Peter Mandelson and Canadian minister of international Trade Stockwell Day were in India last week to discuss the nuclear deal.
Energy deficient India has indicated that it needs foreign economic assistance to achieve its aim of building 18-20 nuclear reactors worth an estimated US$27 billion. Industry insiders believe the country will need a total investment of US$150 billion over the next 15 years to help bridge an energy shortfall.
Jan. 16 - In order to ensure the safty and quality of food and drug products being exported from India to the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently opened two offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.
The move is part of the FDA's Beyond Our Borders Initiative, which will place 35 personnel in 14 locations around the world. The FDA has already opened offices in China and further plans to start offices in Mexico, South America, Europe and the Middle East.
The move into India by the FDA is two pronged – a US government audit last year said the FDA’s infrastructure was inadequate to inspect factories that export drugs to the U.S..To compound their problem further, India is also the fourth largest exporter by volume of drugs and biologics, especially generics, to the US. The Indian pharmaceutical industry had exported drugs worth about US$7.4 billion (Rs 363.6 billion) last year. Read the rest of this entry »
June 13 - At a time when Indian compnaies are snapping up international conglomerates worldwide, India's largest pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy was sold to Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo Co for an estimated US$4.6billion, the largest buy out of an Indian company till date.
The agreement allows Daiichi Sankyo to buy at least 50.1 percent of the Indian generic drug maker's voting rights through March 2009, the Japanese company said in a statement.
Adding Ranbaxy's network, Daiichi Sankyo can more than double its global reach from the current 21 countries to 56, the Japanese company said.
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