Indian government expedites approval process to promote pharma innovation

An objective to attain self-reliance and reduce import dependence in India's pharmaceutical sector has resulted in the India government clearing 19 applications in a rapid-fire way with a committed investment of $628.84 million under its ambitious production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for the promotion of domestic manufacturing of critical key drug intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), reports The Pharma Letter’s India correspondent.

Incentives worth $944 million are to be given over nine years beginning with the current financial year. The government approved 14 projects belonging to two different categories for manufacturing APIs.

As India's Department of Pharmaceuticals launched the PLI scheme on February 24, that encourages setting up greenfield plants with minimum domestic value addition in four different target segments - two in fermentation based with at least 90% and two in chemical synthesis based with minimum 70% - the government has already cleared five applications under Target Segment I which involves a committed investment of $511.58 million. The outlay of the PLI-2 scheme is packed with incentives worth $2.07 billion to be disbursed during 2020-21 to 2029-30.