New Delhi: In a bid to
foster ‘Make in India' program, Centre has delinked the medical devices sector
from pharmaceuticals sector. The medical devices vertical will now have
separate policies and incentive support, Ananth Kumar, Minister for Chemicals
and Fertilizers said on Sunday.
The government has also decided to
bear the cost of effluent treatment plant and provide some basic facilities
free of cost at the upcoming medical device parks in states such as Andhra
Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra, to make it globally competitive, and
to lower the cost of production.
Experts said
that government's decision to bear the cost of effluent treatment plant may
bring down the cost of medical device manufacturing in India by as much as 30
per cent.
“We are also
working towards having a separate ministry of pharmaceutical and medical
devices. I have recommended this to the Prime Minister and this request is
under active consideration by PMO,” said Kumar.
Currently,
India imports over 70 per cent of its medical device requirements and the total
annual market size is estimated at over USD 10 billion. Till now, the medical
device sector has been governed by the “Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940” which
was primarily meant for regulating the pharmaceutical industry. Globally, the
medical device industry is separate from pharma sector, and is governed by
separate set of legislations and regulatory framework.
The Indian medical devices industry
has for a very long time been urging that this inconsistency has been one of
the chief bottlenecks for the growth of the industry and hampered its
development as a globally competitive on the lines of Indian pharma sector.
The medical
device industry was also urging the government to have strict ethical marketing
regime code and disincentivization of such importers who are passing over as
manufacturers by just labeling imported products.
Source: DNA-13th February,2017
