India will become a global leader in biopharmaceuticals, bio-manufacturing, and life sciences by 2030, said Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, on Wednesday. Singh said this while speaking at the sixth CII Pharma and Life Sciences Summit: 2024, held in the national capital on Wednesday.

He commended the country for “emerging as a hub for affordable and high-quality medicines”. India must now also focus on vaccine equity, and technology transfer to boost global vaccination efforts, Singh said. “The ‘Make in India’ initiative is pivotal in reducing our dependence on imported Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). By strengthening our domestic manufacturing, we are bolstering self-reliance and ensuring critical healthcare supplies are readily available,” the Minister said.

“We now rank third in pharmaceutical production by volume and 14th by value,” he added. Lauding the pharma industry, Singh said the transition from a generic-focused model to the development of biopharmaceuticals and biosimilars, has been one of the “most remarkable shifts”. Further, the Minister said the next industrial revolution will come from the biotech sector. “Thanks to initiatives like the PLI scheme, India is well on its way to becoming a global leader in biopharmaceuticals, bio-manufacturing, and life sciences by 2030,” he said, adding “There is still much to be achieved”.

The development of the world’s first DNA vaccine for COVID-19 and the efforts to develop the first human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for adolescent girls, which will prevent cervical cancer exemplified India’s leadership in global health. India has also significantly transformed health outcomes, especially for low- and middle-income countries, by producing 65 per cent of the world’s vaccines.

–IANS

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In a very important development pertaining to the pharmaceutical industry, the government has made it mandatory to put QR codes on Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) used in medicines and the new rule will be applicable from January 1, 2023.

This would allow helping in distinguishing between genuine and counterfeit drugs and it would be easy for government agencies to trace pharmaceutical firms and acquire information like if the formula has tampered and where is the origin of the raw material and where is the product going.

These are the guidelines: -It will be mandatory to put QR code on the API.
-The new rule will be applicable from January 1, 2023.
-Health Ministry issued notification.
-Now it will be easy to identify genuine and counterfeit medicines.
-The QR code will contain the manufacturer and batch number information.
-Expiry and importer information will also be available.

Medicines produced with counterfeit and low-quality APIs can be harmful to benefit patients that is why the DTAB i.e. Drugs Technical Advisory Board had approved this proposal in June 2019 and according to a government report, 20 per cent of the medicines made in India are fake and 3 per cent of medicines are of substandard quality.

The idea was proposed in 2011, however, due to the repeated refusal of pharma companies, a decision could not be reached as pharma companies were more concerned about the fact that different government departments would issue different guidelines.

However, in the face of the Covid pandemic and the need for transparency the demand from the companies that a uniform QR code should be implemented across the country, after which in the year 2019, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization prepared this draft and it clealry suggested to make QR code mandatory for APIs.

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The post QR codes to be put on API from Jan 2023, will help track genuine and counterfeit drugs appeared first on The Commune.