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Roadmap for pharma & medical devices sectors for 2047 aims at halving cost of drugs in out-of-pocket expenditure
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Gireesh Babu, New Delhi
April 28 , 2022
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The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) is aiming at halving the share of cost of drugs in the out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) from the current position by the year 2047. The DoP is currently in discussion with the pharmaceutical industry for finalising a draft of the roadmap for pharma and medical device sector for the year 2047. The DoP is also proposing to establish 50 medical devices clusters or parks and zero discharge in all pharma clusters, among others.
According to a document shared by the DoP in the seventh edition of India Pharma and Indian Medical Device 2022, organised by the Department and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), commenced on April 25 in New Delhi, the long term vision for the year 2047 include enhancing NIPERs as world class and renowned institutes in pharma, medical devices and healthcare sectors and driving pharma to become a value-based sector through innovation.
According to a the ministry of health and family welfare’s National Health Accounts estimates for the year 2017-18 published late last year, household’s Out of Pocket Expenditure on health is Rs. 2,76,532 crore (48.8% of the Total Health Expenditure [THE], 1.6% of GDP, Rs. 2,097 per capita), and Private Health Insurance expenditure is Rs. 33,048 crore (5.8% of THE). The out of pocket expenditure on health as a percent of THE has come down from 64.2 per cent in 2013-14 and on a longer term, from Rs 69.4 per cent in 2004-05, it said.
The rough draft of roadmap also aims to establish a centre for precision medicines and moving towards green manufacturing practices in pharma and medical device sector through research and education, among others.
Officials said that the roadmap is a rough draft for the discussion of the stakeholders and the DoP will be incorporating the inputs from the stakeholders before finalising it after the conference. The exercise is part of the Government’s plans to prepare Vision 2047 for various sectors.
In the medium term, by the year 2037, the roadmap expects the brain drain to be reversed to brain gain and an innovation pipeline with five to seven new molecular entities and 10-12 launches per year. It is expected to expand the existing NIPERs and set up new ones, expanding NIMERs for medical devices industry to 10 institutes from the three aimed in short term by 2027.
It also aims at generating entrepreneurs through expansion of Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Aushadhi Pariyojana, strengthening Intellectual Property Rights landscape for pharma and medical devices, having leadership in three of the 10 top technologies in medical technologies, developing integrated digital delivery of products and services for patient monitoring, improving quality of life through personalised medicines and collaborative research with producing at least 1,000 PhD in pharma annually, in the medium term.
By the time, it is also expected to have integrated regulators for pricing, quality and service delivery and a robust and resilient pricing policy for healthcare security. It also aims to move towards 50 per cent of all prescriptions to generics.
In the near term, by the year 2027, it is expecting to set up three NIMERs for medical devices, establish Centre of Excellence on medical devices, nutraceuticals, precision medicines, biosimilars, cell and gene therapy, phyto-pharma, and marine pharmaceuticals. It would also look at Artificial Intelligence equipped diagnostic and monitoring systems including QR code technology for public awareness and information.
A digital database of all research related to pharma, medical devices and biotech, research consortium of pharma, biopharma and medical devices with dedicated fund for innovation and expanding and strengthening the Jan Aushadhi scheme to achieve coverage by one Kendra per one lakh population are some of the other goals set for the year 2027.
Active dissemination of generics in South Asia and African regions and integration of digital-healthcare products with the goal of improving quality of life is also another goal for the near term.
S Aparna, secretary, DoP said that the task is to identify the future trends and take the technological advances and the kind of demography and disease profile, and finally the kind of therapeutic platforms that the industry will be working on over the next 25 years while preparing the roadmap for 2047.
“While we have built up an enormous capacity in manufacturing and in terms of our quality, I do believe that there is a potential and opportunity for the pharmaceutical sector to now venture into creating a differentiation based on innovation. That is not going to be very easy because each company will have to move out of their comfort zone and going to a more risky venture, putting risk capital, convince shareholders and stakeholders to take that approach and be ready for failures whereas they have got used to success over the last few decades,” she said.
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