Union Minister for Chemical and Fertilizers Shri D V Sadananda Gowda has lauded the contribution of Indian pharma industry during the testing time of COVID expressing confidence that Indian pharma industry will be among the first one to develop and supply low cost vaccines for this pandemic.

Shri Gowda was addressing a Webinar organised by Invest India Pharma Bureau and Department of pharmaceuticals on #EIF2020 Medical Devices and Pharmaceutical Sector Edition - unravelling the investment potential, Gol initiatives, infrastructure & emerging opportunities in the sector through video conferencing yesterday evening. Union Minister also stresse that Indian pharma and medical devices industry were able to rise to the occasion. He added, "It is matter of great pride for me and millions of Indians that from being a net importer, India has become second largest producer of PPE Kits in the world with daily production capacity surpassing more than 5 lakh per day.

Similarly in case of ventilators, within a very short span of time, indigenous production capacity has increased to 3 lakh per annum. In addition, India did not face any scarcity of medicines, prices of medicines remained stable throughout. This was achieved due to active cooperation among various Departments and agencies of the Central Government, State Governments and private sector, Shri Gowda said.

Stressing on the need of development of indigenous capacity in Medical devices Shri Gowda said, "it is very important as it has a crucial role to play in improving accessibility and affordability of healthcare especially with respect to availability of precision devices for screening and diagnosis, advanced surgical equipment needed for treatment, and devices for monitoring of health indicators, among others."

He further said under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Department of Pharmaceuticals has taken several measures to create enabling environment for development of domestic capacity in pharma and medical deivice sector and has decided to support the development of three bulk drug parks and four medical devices parks across the country in coordination with State Governments and private sector. The objective is to make India self reliant in production of 53 critical APIs or Key Starting Materials (KSMs), and in production of medical devices, for which India is crucially dependent upon imports.

Shri Gowda said that he is very much sure that these parks will be able to attract significant investment as well as latest technology. Within a period of 2 -3 years, due to business friendly policies of Union Government under leadership of Shri Narendra Modi, pharma sector will become atmanirbhar, not only in sense of meeting domestic requirements but also for fulfilling global demand of low cost - high quality medicines and medical devices. It is expected that these schemes of Union Government for development of bulk drug & medical device park will attract cumulative investment of Rs 78000 crore and can generate about 2.5 lakh employment.