President’s Message

It is gratifying to note that I had been elected as National President along with other senior leaders who were elected as Office Bearers and Executive Committee Members in the Annual General Body Meeting held on 25th of September 2021. This kind gesture by all of you reminds me to be humble and discharge my duties with full responsibility.

I take this opportunity to assure you that my-self, other Office Bearers and Executive Committee members will strive hard to work for the growth of Bulk drug industry in the country and jointly try to solve all the issues that we may face time to time from Central, State Governments and other institutions.

Fiscal year 2021 started off as a promising year on all fronts. We were on track in terms of various programs until second wave of Covid, when the country began witnessing again signs of the pandemic. In effect it was clear that the country had to face again challenging periods as well.

As leaders of the industry, in these unprecedented times, Pharma industry had come up to the expectations in providing timely medicines by maintaining the production capacities against many odds particularly the steep increase in cost of imports from China.

Over the years, our association has aptly demonstrated this ability by bringing out innovations in the area of expanding our capabilities of self-sufficiency in providing medicines at affordable rates. We had supported the Governments of Telangana and Andhra with financial contributions, supply of essential drugs at very affordable rates and also supply of equipment like ventilators and Oxygen generators during very critical times. In the year gone by.

We are proud to announce that we are playing a significant part in protecting public health, not only in India but all over the world. I am happy to say that BDMA is associated with central and State Authorities and policy makers providing timely suggestions with respect to new policies and amendments of the existing once. I strongly believe that our representations to various departments of Centre and State will be accorded due importance.

The Indian Pharmaceutical Industry has witnessed a robust growth over the past few years. India now ranks 3rd world wide by volume of production and 14th by value, thereby accounting for around 10% of world’s production by volume and 1.5% by value. Globally, it ranks 4th in terms of generic production and 17th in terms of export value of bulk actives and dosage forms. Indian exports are destined to more than 200 countries around the globe including highly regulated markets of US, West Europe, Japan and Australia. It has shown tremendous progress in terms of infrastructure development, technology base creation and a wide range of products. The industry now produces bulk drugs belonging to all major therapeutic groups requiring complicated manufacturing technologies. Strong scientific base and highly skilled technical manpower and pioneering work done in process development have made this a reality.

India is the country with largest number of US-FDA compliant plants (more than 262 including APIs) outside of USA. We have nearly 1400+ WHO-GMP approved Pharma Plants, 253+ European Directorate of Quality Medicines (EDQM) approved plants with modern state of the art Technology. No other country can boast of such an infrastructure.

It is now time for India to increase domestic production of critical APIs & intermediates. Government should do the following on priority

• Encourage development of life sciences/pharmaceutical cluster in the country where companies, academic institutions and R&D institutes converge and give rise to meaningful collaborations in drug discovery.
• Focusing on training required for workers to be ready to work in the Pharmaceuticals and API sector and strengthen the skills.
• Invest in life sciences research and encourage development of private sector in this industry.
• Develop integrated Pharma and API Industrial parks with support infrastructure and centralized services.
• Develop and strengthen Environmental infrastructure in existing and proposed industrial estates.

In the recent past sourcing of key starting materials from china is becoming difficult and will be more difficult further. We suggest and strongly recommend for financial support by Government of India for Pharmaceutical Companies under different schemes

We are happy to inform you that

• Our proposal for setting up of Advanced Analytical Testing Facility and Training Center at Jeedimetla has received in principle approval from Department of Pharmaceuticals, Government of India under assistance to pharmaceutical industry for common facility scheme.
• In continuation of earlier studies BDMA engaged University of Hyderabad to study on ‘Chemical and genomic approaches to investigate possible link between development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and pharma industry effluents”.
• TSPCB is supporting BDMA to study for root cause of pollution of Hussain Sagar Lake and to investigate scientifically and identify the problem. The study is under progress.

At a time when self-reliance is the motto of our nation it is imperative that the Indian pharmaceutical industry strengthen its supply chain, we as an industry need to ensure that our value chains are independent of the volatility that surrounds us, by mitigating the risk of raw material supply.

For self-sufficiency in the field of pharmaceuticals

• India needs to invest in development of novel drugs that can be patented
• Maintain Competitiveness. Indian government has taken steps to boost the production of KSMs including APIs and drug intermediates through a proposed incentive package (PLI SCHEME), taking advantage of this we as an industry need to leverage our high quality low cost manufacturing capabilities to ensure that we continue to provide the world with affordable medicines.
• Develop infrastructure facilities.

I will be very happy if you, on your part, participate in all our activities along with us. Please feel free to communicate to us if any problem is faced by the industry which needs our attention and we are here to deal with it. I enclose a list of the newly elected Office Bearers and Executive Committee members for your records and future communications.

I thank you very much for the honor given to all of us.