Govt Eyes More NIPERs , Pacts with Pvt Cos for Drug Research

NEW DELHI: The government plans to step up partnership with private players through NIPERs for drug discovery as it looks to set up more such institutions in the next five years.

"We should innovate, we should produce new molecules. We should have very good drug discovery system to make sure we are activating all our NIPE Very shortly, over the next 4-5 years, I think we will have around a dozen NIPERs", Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) Secretary V K Subburaj said.

"We are working towards that. Even with the existing NIPERs, we are tying up with the private industry to enable right atmosphere for research."

There are currently seven National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER)in the country.

Commenting on other policy initiatives, Subburaj said the government is looking at implementing the Katoch Committee report as well as working to solve issues plaguing the medical device manufacturers.

"We want to see the medical devices sector grow in India. Like bulk drugs, in medical devices also, we want to reduce the dependency on other countries. We have to create our own local manufacturing capacities," Subburaj said.

"We need to see that conducive atmosphere is created for medical device manufacturers in India for instance the inverted duty structure, today we can import any medical equipment with zero tax but if we have to import raw material we have to pay tax. We have worked out and given it to department of revenue," he added.