India calls for clear roadmap from China to ramp up Indian pharmaceutical exports

India has called for a "clear romap" from China to meet its long-standing demand to open up Chinese pharmaceuticals market for Indian exports as drug regulators of both nations held ir first ever meeting on Friday at Shanghai, brainstorming on removing roblocks.

India for long has been pressing China to open its pharmaceutical market which is under pressure from public for high prices for cancer and generic drugs, for Indian pharma exports to dress yawning tre deficit which last year according to Chinese figures, crossed USD 57 billion. Besides pharmaceuticals, India has been asking China to open up its IT market as well to ensure a stey increase of Indian exports.

Officials of India and China have been working to dress India's concerns since last year's informal Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Following meeting, China has begun import of rice, sugar and soybean but re was breakthrough yet on pharma front, regarded as a "big ticket" item. 

In order to break delock, drug controllers of India and China along with senior commerce ministry officials and diplomats held a nine-hour meeting in eastern city of Shanghai which is first of its kind. In his mess to meeting Indian Ambassor to China, Vikram Misri, has called for a clear romap from Beijing to dress issue.

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Misri said that a 'clear romap' for increasing share of Indian medicines in Chinese market needs to be in place. meeting between regulators should be regular, according to a press release issued by Indian Embassy here. During regulatory meeting, India's drug regulator Dr S E Reddy emphasised on regulator becoming facilitator for improving affordability and accessibility of quality medicines to citizens, statement ded. 

Xu Jinghe, Deputy Commissioner of National Medical Products ministration (NMPA), elaborated on reforms carried away by China in last two years and hoped for more engments on this issue. Prashant Lokhande, Councillor Tre Indian embassy, summarised meeting with a clear mess of outcome-oriented future engments between regulators and commercial ministries, statement said.

In background of growing acceptance of Indian medicines, he expressed a desire to work with provincial governments to get more access to Indian medicines in registration and procurement process, it ded. At meeting, Joint Secretary of Commerce Ministry Shyamal Misra pitched for clearing various regulatory hurdles faced by Indian companies in China.

Dr Mandeep Bhandari, Joint Secretary, Health vocated for more coordinated role to be played by regulators from both sides. intensive day-long session covered detailed deliberations in six sessions such as regulatory overview of NMPA, registration of imported drugs in China, Indian regulatory system, drug procurement system in China, NMPA overseas inspections and compliance guide, API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient) registration process in China.

Highlighting success of recent Chinese film 'Dying to Survive,' which showed survival of a cancer patient on banned imported Indian drugs as y are cheap, India argued at meeting that China should seriously consider importing Indian drugs which are in demand from various countries including US.

China is world's second biggest pharma market and under ir Healthy China 2030 policy, y are committed to providing quality drugs at an affordable price to its citizens, press release said. India has emerged as pharmacy of world by providing high-quality generic drugs at very affordable price. Our global exports have reached USD19 billion last year with India exporting to very high-quality sensitive markets like US, Japan and EU, it said.

However, our exports of pharma formulations to China is just USD 30 million which is insignificant as compared to potential that exists. Indian side is working intensively to tap this potential and build upon complementarities in tre in pharmaceuticals, it said.

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