Make India a leader in drug production,Kalam tells Pharma community

Berhampur, Jul 4 (UNI) President A P J Abdul Kalam today urged the pharma community to identify all missions that will make India the leader in drug production.

'' We must set a target of producing 40 per cent of world generics production, '' Dr Kalam said while addressing the Silver Jubilee celebration of College of Pharmaceutical Science at Mohuda near here.

The global production of pharmaceuticals, branded and generics put together is of the order of 550 billion dollars, while the Indian Pharma industry at present has a turnover of 12.5 billion dollars of generics for domestic and export markets against the production of 78 billion dollars worth of generics in the world, he said.

Dr Kalam said India has got a core competence of producing cost effective and quality pharma products. The pharma specialists assembled here and the students studying in various disciplines must keep these targets in mind and contribute adequately for the realisation of Indian Pharma Vision, 2020.

India, currently has 560,000 Pharma specialists and pharma scientists and 75 per cent of this human resource are involved in distribution and retailing of drugs in community and hospital sectors, while the balance 15-20 per cent were deployed in manufacturing, quality, R&D, regulatory sectors and in academia.

Dr Kalam said the remaining 5-10 per cent go for higher studies, hinting that by 2020 the demand for pharma specialists at various levels will be over 1.7 million in the country.

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