The government will be spending about Rs.3,000 crore in the next three years to double the number of drug regulators, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
Addressing a conference at the international exhibition for pharma and healthcare ‘iPHEX’, Drugs Controller General (India) G. N. Singh said, “The Central Government will be spending over Rs.3,000 crore in the next three years (under the XII Plan) towards enhancing the capacity of the regulators both at the Centre and State levels.” While the number of regulators would be increased to 1,000 from 500 at the Central level, as many as 3,000 regulators would be deployed at the state levels, he added. Further, the government would set up state-of-the-art testing labs at ports to ensure that the pharmaceuticals and drugs exports shipments met global quality standards.
Joint Secretary in the Commerce Ministry Sudhanshu Pandey told the media that the government was following a “zero tolerance” policy for ensuring that India not only maintained but further strengthened its ranking in the world pharmaceuticals market.
He said these measures on quality assurance were even more important when a big opportunity would be unfolding in the off-patent generics in the next few years.
