Post Event

CII Life Sciences Conclave

"The Indian government is willing to partner with the Indian industry for a new bio-technology strategy and will announce a policy within the next two weeks," said Kapil Sibal, Honourable Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Government of India, at the valedictory session of the 'Life Science Conclave-2007', organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The government is planning to implement a policy framework to ensure support to the life sciences companies at the initial stage of product development, launch of the product and assist the companies to deal with intellectual property right issues, said Sibal. "We are willing to go into equity relationship with private companies and provide grant for research and development," he said. He mentioned that India needed to rethink its administrative setup to facilitate the global need in the life sciences sector.

India is among the top 15 countries in consumption value and fourth largest country in the world production volume, said Dr Swati Piramal, Past Chairman, CII Maharashtra State Council and member, and Director-Strategic Alliance and Communications, Nicholas Piramal (India) at the conclave. Citing the McKinsey's report, Piramal said that India's Pharma turnover is expected to treble to US $20 billion by 2015. She said that intense competition had resulted in medicine prices falling to the lowest in the world. The real challenge for the pharmaceutical industry is the access to the common people, and the Indian government and industry should jointly address this issue, she said.

Dr Prathap C Reddy, CII National Committee on Healthcare and Chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group, called for "increased interaction between the stakeholders in the pharma sector" leading to greater innovation "so that high quality cost-effective medicine reach the common man." Delivering the keynote address at the two-day Life Sciences Conclave Reddy said that in the effort to bringing affordable medication to the poor, "the government must act as a facilitator to create a win-win situation for all with the final winner being the common man."

Talking in the plenary on "Strategic alliances for developing synergies for the cross-border relationships," Malvinder Mohan Singh, CEO and Managing Director, Ranbaxy Laboratories, expected more alignment among big pharma and generic companies in India on pharmaceutical research and marketing. Singh said that new partnership models are emerging in the global generic spaces and intellectual property (IP) patenting. The new partnerships must leverage on each other's skill sets, not only in R&D, but both in front and backend operations.

The CII-Ernst & Young (E&Y) discussion document on vision 2015 for life sciences was released at the conference. Making a presentation on the vision document, Utkarsh Palnitkar, Partner and National Health Sciences Leader, E&Y said that the document presents compelling insight into the aspirations of the Indian pharmaceutical industry and broadly defines the critical measures that may have to be adopted to achieve it. He said the pharma industry should strike a balance between the twin forces of affordability and profitability. The document has been structured on the four core values: profitability for sustenance, research to innovate, and integrity to drive business and medicines for all.

In his opening remarks, Hari S Bhartia, Chairman, CII Energy Council & Co-Chairman & Managing Director, Jubilant Organosys, said that the government and the academia will play a key role in the future evolution of the industry. He called for creating an eco-system where all the stakeholders in the pharma sector will work in close collaboration. Sandeep Gupta, Managing Director, Eli Lilly, India said, "While cost of R&D was creeping up, productivity was declining." He said that the era of blockbuster drugs was coming to an end as the world is moving towards customised therapeutics. He also saw transition from smaller molecules to large molecules. Considering all these changes, Gupta called for greater alliance between the pharma companies that focused on quality, speed and value.