India’s pharma industry & academia join hands to catalyze innovation in R&D

New Delhi: “The Indian pharma industry has the potential to grow to around USD 120-130 bn over the next decade from the current value of around USD 41 Bn. Innovation will be one of the key drivers of this growth. By bringing together industry and academia, the Pharmaceutical Innovation Exchange forum will help us unlock value and collaborate to bring innovative healthcare solutions to patients in need,” says Satish Reddy, President of the IPA and Chairman, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Limited.

Reddy was speaking alongside other leading stalwarts from India’s industry and academia at the 1^st Pharmaceutical Innovation Exchange (PIE) Forum organized by Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) jointly. The Forum provides a unique opportunity to the academic research institutions and industry experts to exchange knowledgebase and innovations. This initiative would contribute to shaping industry-oriented research and strengthen indigenous development, upscale or to commercialise the innovative pharmaceutical products and technologies.

“Building presence in innovation is now a critical priority for India to address the needs of our healthcare system, as well as maintain high relevance in the global pharma space. India has several strengths to leverage and to move forward in the journey to ‘Discover in India’ from ‘Make in India”, remarked Dr Shekhar Mande, Director General, CSIR.

“Patient centricity is at the core of IPA’s ethos, and we are confident that our collaboration with CSIR would generate substantial healthcare benefit for India. Indian industry would play pivotal role going forward in the innovation space”, said Sudarshan Jain, Secretary General, IPA.

Moving forward, the pharma companies would carry one-on-one interactions with relevant CSIR institutes. The IPA and CSIR would continue to play the catalytic and facilitatory role to strengthen industry-academia collaboration.

More than 100 participants attended the Forum representing pharma industry experts from 22 IPA member companies, Directors and Senior research Scientists from premier CSIR institutes namely, IICT-Hyderabad, IIIM-Jammu, NCL-Pune, CDRI-Lucknow, IMTECH-Chandigarh, and NIIST-Thiruvananthapuram. The discussions were preceded by overview of CSIR capability by Mr RP Singh, Head, IMD, CSIR-HQ and Dr S. Chandrasekhar, Director- CSIR-IICT. The knowledgebase available with CSIR and core competencies of different laboratories were showcased. The key insights presented would enable companies to identify avenues for potential collaborations.

The CSIR laboratories are at the forefront of drugs and pharmaceutical research and there is a high degree of expertise and infrastructure available. Importantly, CSIR has undertaken several measures such as prioritization of research programmes, creation of state-of the- art facilities, induction of new talent and most importantly, establishing linkages within CSIR and with other national & international agencies and industry.

Notably, the Directors of all the 5 National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPERs), under the aegis of Department of Pharmaceuticals, Government of India also attended the session. Representatives from Invest India and McKinsey also marked their presence.

Innovation will drive the next wave of growth for the industry with potential to propel projected growth rate from the current 7-8% to 11-12%. This will lead to a substantial increase in the global market share of Indian pharmaceutical industry making it among top 3 markets by value globally, from its current rank of 13th and world’s largest supplier of drugs by volume. Innovation will drive the industry to go beyond generics to next-generation innovative products such as complex generics, biologics, and new drug development.