Pharma, Medtech Innovation Scheme Launch Soon

New Delhi, Sep 16 (PTI) The government is looking to formally launch a scheme to promote innovation in the pharmaceutical and medtech sectors within this month, Department of Pharmaceuticals Secretary Amit Agrawal said on Tuesday.

The Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma MedTech sector (PRIP) scheme was notified on August 17, 2023, with a total financial outlay of Rs 5,000 crore, of which Rs 4,250 crore is focused on accelerating investments in the R&D ecosystem within the sector.

"We are focusing in a very big way now on innovation in India. So we have a scheme (PRIP) which was announced some time ago, but we hope to launch that scheme within this month," Agrawal said while speaking at the APACMed event here.

The scheme will cover pharma and medtech equally, and it could have both early-stage and late-stage funding support, he added.

The scheme will support the extent of 35 per cent to 50 per cent of the cost, depending on the nature of the proposal, in the late stage and the early stage, Agrawal said.

"We are also looking at deepening the ability in the ecosystem to produce critical raw materials and critical components which are needed to deepen the value footprint within India, which will help it make more business sense to really locate production within India," he noted.

Agrawal stated that the medtech sector has already experienced double-digit growth for the last one and a half decades, and there is every indication that this will continue, not for a few more years, but for decades to come.

In terms of infrastructure, three medical device parks were coming up in the country, he said.

"They are all expected to be functional sometime by early 2027, and that will give us a good space... And in the next version of the scheme, we are planning to build more specialised facilities for those medical grade materials locally available, so that will give us a scale," Agrawal stated.

Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel said the medical technology sector is being recognised as a sunrise sector, and the Government of India has taken several policy initiatives to promote the growth of this sector.

Domestic manufacturing has increased on one side, and exports are also increasing in all segments, she said.

"Today India is transforming into a high volume and high value player in the global medtech market," the minister stated.