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India the Pharmacy of the World now poised to become the "Research-Lab" of the World Indian Biotechnology Industry to become USD 150 billion Market by 2025
Sep 17, 2021

The Indian Life Sciences industry is paving the way for future growth in terms of meeting the domestic needs, as well as establishing the nation as a leader in the global life sciences landscape. There are still several challenges that need to be addressed and it is of fundamental importance to re-strategize the restoration of India’s position in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology landscape.

Against this backdrop, CII organized the third edition of Life Sciences Conclave that provides the necessary platform for stakeholders across the world to converge and embed their ideas to help usher in a new era of competitiveness of the Indian Life Sciences segment to lead global markets. This platform seeks to curate and create an environment conducive to help build a better future and achieve the targets the nation has set for itself.

Reform is needed in the space of ease of doing science, regulation, university functioning in research and industry academia linkages stated Prof. K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India at the inaugural session of the CII Life Sciences Conclave. He added that “there is an extraordinary desire to do high end research that is globally competitive, and the industry has no shortage of capital but a shortage of risk capital.” We need to connect our lab ecosystem to our industry and bring research into our broader ecosystem. Our population, network of labs and the fundamental simplicity of research that is undertaken here will help India grow as compared to similarly placed countries.

Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology & Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science & Technology expressed that “today we have been able to see breakthrough in silos and the boundaries have gotten blurred between academia, industry and startups.” Moving ahead, India will not just be the pharmacy of the world but also the research lab of the world. There is a need to create an industry strategized research partnership platform. The bio-strategy document is in place that will lead India to become a USD 150 billion market by 2025. We now need to focus on how ways to encourage new IP generation and new innovative research, this will require industry collaborations with both academia and startups. Our focus should be on achieving scalability that is matched with sustainability, and we will at least 10,000 startups in the next 5 years.

CII launched the report title “Taking India’s Life Sciences to the Global Stage - “Make in India” to fuel 4x growth in Biosimilars and Vaccines by 2026.” The report maps out the measures needed for growing the biosimilars market from USD 550 million to USD 5-6 billion, and accelerating vaccines from USD 2 billion to USD 4-5 billion. There are 3 plans that have been advocated to transform the global industry: The need for an innovation Mindset to Action. This will require an increase in access to risk capital for mid stage Indian biotech startups, targeted government policies to enhance cash position of biotech companies, human resource augmentation, and making Indian bio-clusters. The next plan is to transform from cost competitiveness to cost leadership through Aatmanirbhar and building indigenous capability, IPR reformations and the reformation of regulatory process to reduce time and cost. The last point of action is to level the playing field through reinstating image of Indian made pharmaceuticals and development of capabilities to seek global partnerships.

We need to build a biotech sector that is truly vertically integrated expressed Dr Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Executive Chairperson & Founder Biocon. The access to supply chain for reusables, re-agents in biologics and manufacturing is imperative, and it is important that we indigenize a lot of these requirements, so we don’t have any supply chain disruptions. She further added that “the future belongs to biotech, bioscience and biopharma and we need to invest right now. We need to create a conducive environment to provide the necessary risk capital to scale up. This would require specialized venture funds.”

The chemical revolution is over, the biological revolution has started stated Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman & Managing Director, Bharat Biotech International Limited. The Indian vaccine manufactures have tremendously contributed globally as 2/3 children across the world are vaccinated by Indian vaccines. Indian vaccine industry was more focused on children’s vaccines, the shift is happening towards adult vaccines. We need clinical trial centers across the country and have partnerships with countries all over the world especially in South East Asia, Africa, and Latin America

The biotech industry plays a strategic role in eradicating diseases and curing the, and there is an opportunity to strengthen the Indian biotech sector, with funding needing to go to the area of communicable disease stated Dr Rajesh Jain, Chairman, CII National Biotechnology Committee and Managing Director, Panacea Biotec. Reforms in the guidelines and protections in IP need to be undertaken to unlock our capabilities, with a modernized capital market required. Mr Vivek Kamath, Vice Chairman, CII National Committee on Pharmaceuticals and Managing Director & GM EPD – Abbott Specialty Care, Abbott Healthcare Private Limited stated that we need a comprehensive infrastructure and regulatory framework that supports innovation and places them alongside global standards along with focus on technology transfer.

17 September 2021

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