Panel divided on restricting pharma FDI

Sep 04, 2011 - TEENA THACKER |

Age Correspondent

New Delhi

Even as the Union health ministry is pushing for stricter norms with reg-ard to take over of Indian pharmaceutical companies by multinational companies (MNCs), there seems to be a sharp divide within the expert panel mandated to decide on restricting FDI in pharma. The panel is expected to give its recommendations this month.
Apprehending that re-cent trend would impact the affordability, accessibility and availability of drugs in India, the health ministry had urged for stricter norms for the MNCs. In a recent letter written to the ministry of commerce and industry, senior officials in the health ministry had urged to revise the policy of 100 per cent FDI through automatic route in pharmaceutical sector, emphasizing that there was a strong case of bringing FDI in pharma sector through Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), a government body offering a single window clearance for proposals on FDI.
The Union ministry is of the view that FDI in brownfield ventures sho-uld be capped. “Pharma sector is not like any other sector, it affects the life of the people. We are apprehensive that this trend may affect the cost of the essential medicines. Also, FDI flow into brown field projects does not add to capacity building,” said an official in the ministry. While the Union health ministry feels that the FDI norms should be revisited to ensure healthy growth of pharmaceutical industry, other members in the panel seem to differ. An expert panel from various ministries was constituted in June this year to look into the issue.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/94041" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-d62132482dbf74fe1402f4ccdcf4ce00" value="form-d62132482dbf74fe1402f4ccdcf4ce00" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="87177637" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>