New Pharma R&D policy on the cards

India’s Pharma Secretary PD Vaghela said the Indian government will shortly unveil a new Research and Development policy that seeks to incentivize the scientists on the monetisation of their innovations. He added that it will also insist on globally benchmarking the country’s Research & Development ecosystem by getting rid of archaic laws and rewarding the scientists through industry-academia linkage.

“Lack of global benchmarking of R&D ecosystem is one of the biggest problems (in India) and our regulations, approval systems, and processes are still very archaic. We need to very closely look at these,” he noted. He also insisted on promoting the scientists with recognition and awards.

The policy is being finalised by a committee headed by Vaghela, which also consists of representatives from the Department of Science and Technology and Indian Council of Medical Research, and industry representatives like Biocon chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Zydus Cadila chairman Pankaj Patel. The policy seeks  to help India emerge as pharmacy of the world post-Coronavirus pandemic. Attaining self-reliance in the sector is critical to avert over-dependence on one country for 58 critical active pharmaceutical ingredients for the production of essential drugs.