Department of Pharmaceuticals secretary Ashok Kumar said the department has come out with a white paper titled Pharma Vision 20-20 and the Planning Commission has agreed to the proposal in principle.
In an ambitious move to boost drug discovery, the Centre is planning to create a fund for pharma research and development worth Rs2,000/3,000 crore, a top government official said here today.
"The fund will focus on drug discovery right from identifying the disease up to securing patent registration. The size of the fund could be between Rs2,000 crore and Rs3,000 crore", Department of Pharmaceuticals secretary Ashok Kumar told reporters on the sidelines of valedictory ceremony of BioAsia-2010 here today.
The Indian Institute of Public Finance and Policy would help fine tune the formation of the fund and the process may take about four months, he added.
He said the department has come out with a white paper titled Pharma Vision 20-20 and the Planning Commission has agreed to the proposal in principle.
The secretary said the proposed fund would not only take care of the finance for drug discovery but also cover risks to some extent in case of failures.
Replying to a query on revival of IDPL unit at Hyderabad, he said that the Government after examining the viability report submitted by Ernst & Young is looking at different options.
First option is to fully fund the sick unit and make it operational, Second option is partly fund it and become a co-developer and the third one is just become a co-developer with the assets of IDPL, he said.
The IDPL is spread over 900 acres and the board has already cleared a proposal to go ahead with the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation to set up Pharma Innovation City in the campus.
Earlier speaking at the valedictory function Ashok Kumar said the Indian pharma Industry crossed USD 20 billion mark in September last year. He said more than 65% of new drug discoveries are taking place in India.
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