PLI scheme: 50 units to be set up for pharma, medical device manufacturing

As many as 50 new greenfield plants are in the pipeline to come up in the next two years under the Production-linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for pharma and medical devices manufacturing, a senior government official said on Thursday.

Speaking at the Annual Pharma Summit organised by industry body Assocham, Department of Pharmaceuticals Secretary Arunish Chawla said as the 'Make in India' initiative completes ten years, already 50 plants have been set up under the PLI schemes for the two sectors.

"The PLI schemes in the pharma and meditech sectors have been a roaring success, 50 brand new greenfield pharma and medical device manufacturing plants have already become operational, and 50 more are in the pipeline," he said.

When asked on the sidelines of the summit when the 50 new greenfield plants will come up, he said, "Everything will be completed in the next two years."

Elaborating on the success of the PLI schemes, Chawla said, "In the last two years alone, the PLI plants have catalysed 10 billion (dollars) worth of exports from India to the highest the most regulated destinations across the planet Earth."

Stating that the notion of India as an importer of bulk drugs hugely dependent on certain destinations is a myth, Chawla said, "In the closing year, India exported as much bulk drugs as it imported from abroad."

The Indian pharma industry has achieved a trade balance in bulk drugs, he added.

Last year more than 50 per cent of drug and pharma produced in the country was exported in both volume and value, he said.

"So officially, the drug and pharma became an export-oriented industry," the secretary added.

He also termed as a myth the notion that India imports most of its medical devices.

In reality, Chawla said, "In the closing year in the surgical and consumables space, the Indian meditech industry exported more than what the country imported."

In other rising sunrise sectors, like imaging devices, body implants and in vitro diagnostics, he said, "We achieved double-digit growth and our exports grew more than double digits."

In the April-August period this fiscal, pharma and meditech have become the fourth largest manufacturing export from India. After the automotive, petrochemicals petroleum products, and electronics sectors, the pharma and the meditech are now officially the fourth largest sector for merchandise exports, Chawla said.

"In terms of value-added, the contribution of pharma and meditech is double of the average of the rest of the manufacturing industry," he said.

On innovation and commercialisation in the sector, he stressed the need for the industry, academia and policy-makers to work together in sync.

He said the 'research-linked incentive' scheme is taking off and the government will support and pick up the industrial projects that have a potential for commercialisation and "that have the potential to facilitate a leap in the next 20 to 30 years".

"We will also support startups," he said while asking the pharma and meditech industry to also support the startups in their respective sectors.

In response to the industry's call for an R&D supportive ecosystem, he said, "We are improving our innovation framework. We have already taken a large number of reforms, some of these reforms have been notified, and a PRIP (Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma MedTech Sector) scheme has been launched. Going forward this ecosystem will energise further.