Niper, Pharmexcil to attend pharma event in China

July 31, 2009 11:08 am

Niper, Pharmexcil to attend pharma event in China 
 
As delegations of National Institute of Pharm aceutical Education & Research and Pharmexcil comprising technical experts attend the CPhI China, the industry has urged the government to make use of the occasion to study technical and marketing advantage of China vis-à-vis Indian industry, in line with the longstanding demand of small and medium sectors.
 
The SME sector stated that the technical experts should study areas in which Chinese technology was superior and suggest strategies to help SME sector improve as officers are from government-backed agencies and indirectly utilize money from the treasury. Dr Ashwini Vig and Dr A. K. Bansal of NIPER and Dr Appaji of Pharmexcil will attend the event that opens in China on June 23.
 
SME Pharma Industries Confederation, in a letter to Pharma Secretary Ashok Kumar, mentioned that the officers should focus their visit on crucial points like assessing the strength and advantages of Chinese industry. SPIC has been requesting the government since February 2008 to take counter measures to face the continuous rise of imports of drugs from China into India. “The imports had risen from Rs 908 crore in 2004-2005 to Rs 2,124 crore in 2006-2007 and badly hit our SME pharma bulk drug industry, and the formulation industry, especially in exports,” said the letter.
 
The comparative prices of various API and formulations as per essential list of India, their export prices, reasons for Chinese export of B-complex tablets and Progesterone injections at half the price of export of Indian alternatives, comparative price of inputs like energy, manpower, solvents, land, infrastructure, banking lending rates, terms and logistic support cost to the pharmaceutical industry in China vis-a-vis India, may also be assessed, the letter said.
 
Besides studying regulatory mechanism, the delegation can also study the event itself so that India could better organize the proposed pharma summit under the aegis of the pharma department in Mumbai.
 
“They should submit a comparative study of quality, prices of Chinese pharmaceutical machinery, packing material and laboratory equipment, laboratory chemicals, etc displayed in the exhibition vis-a-vis Indian prices. They should also study about the training programme needed to be conducted for the SME sector to be implemented by Niper and Pharmexcil to improve Indian capabilities in the SME pharma sector,” the letter said, and added that it would help also the department in formulating policies in future and eclipse Chinese advantage.