Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said that a large share of global value capture, nearly 40% of a market of $6.65 trillion, in the life sciences sector lies in innovation-based products. Mr. Mandaviya was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
Promoting drug discovery and innovation will unlock this value and will also enhance the industry’s contribution to Indian economy, an additional $10-12 billion in exports every year and create a large pool of jobs, he said.
The purpose of the meeting was to establish an affordable and accessible life sciences ecosystem, identify the gaps in the life sciences industry, extend opportunities for knowledge exchange and encouragement of innovation in R&D and identify investment opportunities to create a robust R&D and innovation ecosystem to increase the competitiveness of the life sciences industry.
Mr. Mandaviya urged the Pharma-MedTech sectors to move out of their comfort zone and adopt innovation as a driving feature of their business strategies. He stated that “India is now poised to take on the global arena and move from high-volume to high-value products”.
Medical devices sector
He also informed about the government’s support to the Medical Devices sector by a production-linked incentive scheme and underlined that the bio-pharmaceuticals sector has delivered a 5-year Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 50%.
The demand for better therapeutic outcomes, trends in personalised diagnostics, in-home treatment, wearables, telemedicine, etc. has created scope for differentiated products and service offerings, he said.
Mr. Mandaviya stated that the Union government is focusing on three major areas. Firstly, strengthening the regulatory framework to facilitate innovation and research in product development.
“Indian regulators are now working towards establishing global harmonisation in this regard, with modifications in the regulatory provisions,” he said.
Secondly, incentivising investments in innovation through a mix of fiscal and non-fiscal measures, thereby matching risks with remunerative financing options. “We are looking at a range of interventions that would facilitate funding support for innovation such as schemes to support investments into R&D innovation, reimbursement of R&D spending and designing appropriate fiscal incentives to promote R&D”, he stated.
Thirdly, creating a facilitatory ecosystem to support innovation and cross-sectoral research as a strong institutional mechanism for sustainable growth in the research and development and innovation sector.
