New Delhi, Aug 2: The government is in the advanced stages of formulating a new drug policy which apart from providing incentives to the industry will incorporate strategies to take advantage of new developments in the world of medicine including genome research.Speaking at the launch of a e-commerce based portal on pharmaceutical industry `epharmabusiness.com' here on Wednesday, chemicals and fertilisers minister Suresh Prabhu said the draft policy was being circulated within various ministries and the government was in the process of getting the opinion of all parties concerned.
The minister added that as in the case of the fertiliser policy, the government would hold national debates on the draft drug policy too to consider the views of the industry and consumers.
The task force on knowledge-based industries set up under the chairmanship of human resource development minister Murli Manohar Joshi and the drug price control committee headed by Ficci secretary general Amit Mitra are also expected to provide inputs to the new drugs policy.
Prabhu said the pharma industry should come out with self-regulatory organisations to control the quality of drug and tackle other problems including violation of patents.
"We are among top five largest producers of drugs in the world and more than 10,000 Indian companies export drugs to developed countries and regions including the US, Europe and East-Asia," the minister said. He added that the industry has to tackle its weaknesses to improve its performance in the internatinoal market.
The minister said that the pharma portal would ensure that the traded drugs are of good quality as one objective of e-commerce was achieving transparency.
The portal epharmabusiness.com developed by Omega Infosystem Pvt. Ltd. has been designed to facilitate online trading. According to Omega Infosystem managing director Tarun Goel, it is the first pharma portal which facilitates on-line business for its registered members. "It will facilitate the registered members to simultaneously focus on their existing customers while reaching a galaxy of new potential buyers and suppliers."
The portal provides value-added services like pharmacoupia and online consultancy. It includes information about manufacturers, traders and exporters related to the pharma industry and also about pharmacy institutes and various drug control authorities.
"One can get the latest news describing the happenings in the pharma industry on the portal enabling the person to take more informed decisions," Goel said.
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