Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals, S Aparna and Union Health Secretary, Rajesh Bhushan recently chaired a panel discussion with the pharmaceuticals industry CEOs on the second day of the 7th international conference on the pharma and medical device sector. Also present was Anurag Jain, Secretary, DPIIT on the theme 'Indian Pharma vision 2047.'

Aparna said, “There are three strands which we should focus on: regulatory framework, research framework along with the resources including fiscal and talent."

She added, “Collaboration between large companies and start-ups, industry and academia collaboration by making public research more accessible and collaboration across sectors including the drug, devices sector along with the digital sector will be the main pillar of growth in the years to come."

Highlighting the importance of the four pillars of the Ayushman Bharat Programme, the Union Health Secretary said that the government is planning to operationalise around 1.5 lakh Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness centres in the country by December 2022 out of which 1.17 lakhs have already been operationalised. He further stated that the government is planning to spend Rs 65,000 crores in the next five years till 2025-26 to create health infrastructure at district levels.

Jain mentioned, "We should also focus on discovering in India, innovate in India and then Make in India. This is especially critical for the pharma sector. He further added that Intellectual Property is an extremely important area for the Pharma sector and we as a part of the government are committed to playing a facilitative role in the sector."

CEOs of various pharma companies, senior officials of the ministry, FICCI were also present at the panel discussion.