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Govt hosts workshop on increasing R&D in pharma-medical tech sector

Published: Mar 13, 2025

By TIOLCorplaws News Service

NEW DELHI, MAR 13, 2025: THE Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India, organised a workshop on the Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma-MedTech Sector (PRIP) Scheme today. The workshop was inaugurated in the presence of the Secretaries of five stakeholder Ministries and Departments of the Government of India, namely, Amit Agrawal, Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals; Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST); S. Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY); Dr N. Kalaiselvi, Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) and Director General (DG), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR); and Dr Rajiv Bahl, Secretary, Department of Health Research (DHR) and DG, Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). The workshop served as a platform for identifying key action points and approaches to further the shared commitment to promote research and development in the pharmaceuticals and medical technologies sector.

Amit Agrawal, Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals highlighted the rapid expansion in the sector, underscoring the importance of research and innovation in driving making and innovating in India for India and the world. In this regard, he highlighted that the global share of personalised and precision technology platforms (such as antibody-drug conjugates, bi-specific antibodies, and cell and gene therapy) among the top-100 drugs by value is growing rapidly, from 5% in 2020 to 9% in 2025 and projected to grow to 20% by 2030. He also highlighted the 10 times increase in the number of Indian healthcare and life sciences startups over the last four years, from over 900 in 2020 to more than 10,000 in 2024, as well as the growing pipeline of innovative products of Indian firms.

Amit Agrawal said that the groundwork and the pipeline for projects for the PRIP scheme has been laid through this growing innovation ecosystem of Indian startups and industry, supported by a wide array of initiatives of the scientific Ministries/ Departments. The latter include the clinical trial network created by CSIR under its INTENT initiative; the patenting support available through DST's TIFAC and ICMR's Patent Mitra initiative; the handholding support available to both medical technology and drug innovations through ICMR's MedTech Mitra initiative; the funding support available to startups through Department of Biotechnology's BIRAC, MeitY's TIDE 2.0 and SAMRIDH schemes and DST's Quantum Computing Mission, etc.

Reiterating the Government's commitment to a robust research ecosystem, Amit said that PRIP is a transformative initiative aimed at catalysing innovation, strengthening industry-academia linkages, and positioning India as a global leader in pharmaceutical and MedTech research.

Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Secretary, DST underscored the importance of cutting-edge scientific research in driving advancements in pharmaceuticals and MedTech, reinforcing India's healthcare ecosystem and highlighted the supports available through the extensive incubator and accelerator network of DST.

S. Krishnan, Secretary, MeitY emphasised the transformative potential of digital health, artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven technologies in drug discovery and medical device development. He highlighted the research strengths of MeitY's organisations, such as Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER), C-DAC and Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET).

Dr Rajiv Bahl, Secretary, DHR and DG, ICMR highlighted the critical role of clinical research, indigenous drug development and regulatory advancements in accelerating pharmaceutical innovation. He offered the full support of the ICMR INTENT, MedTech Mitra and Patent Mitra initiatives in taking forward the shared goals of PRIP scheme. He also said that the industry-academia collaborative research window under the scheme could be of considerable help in taking forward the large volume of intramural and extramural research being funded by ICMR to the market with funding from PRIP and industry involvement.

Dr N. Kalaiselvi, Secretary, DSIR and DG, CSIR underscored the need to foster a culture of scientific collaboration between research institutions and industry to ensure the seamless translation of research into commercially viable applications. She highlighted that considerable research done in CSIR labs could be taken to the market through collaboration with industry and funding from PRIP.

The discussions reaffirmed the Government's vision of transforming India into a global hub for research and innovation in pharmaceuticals and medical technology. The workshop featured four dedicated breakout sessions, bringing together over 100 participants from leading scientific departments and premier institutions, including the National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, IITs, CSIR labs and organisations of ICMR, MeitY, DST and Department of Bio technology, along with key government enablers for the ecosystem. Key deliberations covered the emerging trends in pharmaceutical and MedTech research, strategies for translating research into commercially viable products, government support mechanisms to accelerate sectoral growth and flexibilities sought to maximise the impact from the PRIP scheme.

All participants were requested to share their suggestions in the Expression of Interest (EoI) form for the PRIP scheme hosted on the website of the Department of Pharmaceuticals, so that these may be taken into account while taking forward the scheme and enabling participants. The EoI would be open till April 7, 2025.

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