All stories by Sohini Das
34 new drugs added to 'essential medicines' list, 26 dropped
Rediff.com14 Sep 2022As many as 34 new drugs were added to and 26 dropped from an updated list of essential medicines on Tuesday, with the government saying this will reduce "patients' out-of-pocket expenditure". The National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM 2022) has 384 drugs, up from 376 in 2015. "Drafting this list is a lengthy process, and around 350 experts from across India have held over 140 consultation meetings to draft the NLEM 2022," Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said.
Coming Soon, New Ways To Vaccinate
Rediff.com3 Sep 2022'Just put a patch on your arm and the vaccine can be absorbed by the body.'
Ethical Code to keep doctor, drugmaker nexus at bay not mandatory yet
Rediff.com22 Aug 2022'Gift-giving' - from free dinners and drug samples to promotional merchandise - seems to be driving drugmakers' marketing - a marketing prescription deeply entrenched in the industry. This is a well-oiled racket that sees pharmaceutical (pharma) companies 'gifting' doctors to push their respective drugs under the guise of marketing. But is there a cure in sight to end this unhealthy alliance? The recent controversy following the income-tax raids on Bengaluru-based drugmaker Micro Labs, makers of popular paracetamol brand Dolo-650, has brought this to the fore, again.
Biocon Biologics Plan Molecule Launch Every 1-2 Years
Rediff.com17 Aug 2022'The tie-up with Serum Institute Life Sciences brings to the table their strengths in manufacturing and also their vaccine portfolio.'
How start-ups are shaking up offline pharma business
Rediff.com3 Aug 2022Bulk of the medicine sales in the $22-24 billion domestic pharma market happens through offline retail chemists. With the entry of online pharmacies, this space has started to witness a shake-up. Sample this: Dawaa Dost, a Rajasthan based digital health start-up, generates medicine orders from 'kirana' stores and women self-help groups (SHGs) that operate in villages, and then service these orders through its affiliated network of pharmacies. Biddano, another health-tech start-up, has a platform that acts as an aggregator for neighbourhood chemist shops.
India's rising medical devices imports hurt small and medium units
Rediff.com19 Jul 2022India's medical devices imports surged 41 per cent to touch Rs 63,200 crore in 2021-22, led by a 48 per cent year-on-year (YoY) jump in imports from China to Rs 13,538 crore, the commerce ministry data analysed by the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD) has showed. Local industry players say this has led to several small and medium units to shut shop. Rakesh Vaid of Usha Fabs, a garments exporter, had started making N95 masks in his Gurgaon factory during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
For the first time, Centre allows a private player to process opium
Rediff.com14 Jul 2022The central government has for the first time allowed a private company, Bajaj Healthcare, to process opium to extract alkaloids used to make pain-killers, cough syrups, and even cancer drugs. Two government factories in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, and Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh, do the work yet, processing some 800 tonnes of opium gum annually to extract alkaloids. The government on Tuesday gave Thane-based Bajaj Healthcare an initial contract to process 500 tonnes of opium gum annually and wants production to be at 800 tonnes per annum (tpa) in the next five years, indicating the state's exit from the highly-regulated sector.
Millions of Covid vaccine doses are set to expire in India
Rediff.com20 Jun 2022Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) is sitting on 200 million doses of Covishield that were manufactured in December and are set to expire in September. The company is likely to destroy these vaccines if nothing works out, Sohini Das reports.
'We can't get rid of COVID-19 for a long time to come'
Rediff.com10 Jun 2022'There will be ups and downs, and we have to plan how we live with it now.'
SIIto test Novavax's Omicron-specific vaccine
Rediff.com6 Jun 2022The Drugs Controller General of India has approved the manufacture of this Sars-CoV-2 spike protein recombinant nano-particle vaccine for 'examination, test, and analysis', reports Sohini Das.
Smaller towns witness strong growth in sales of medicines
Rediff.com27 May 2022Medicine sales grew at a fast clip in smaller cities like Madurai, Meerut, Agra, and Varanasi in the last 12 months. The domestic pharmaceutical market, overall, has grown 12.3 per cent in this period, according to data from IQVIA MAT for April. MAT refers to the moving annual turnover or the turnover of the last 12 months. The data further showed that the top 30 cities contributed around 32 per cent to sales.
20-30% new products may be open to USFDA inspection
Rediff.com23 May 2022With all major US export-oriented drug manufacturing plants in the country up for inspection in 2022, some estimates peg that at least 20-30 per cent of the new product launches lined up for the US will be subject to on-site inspection by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). The last two years saw limited physical inspections due to travel restrictions during the pandemic. "Pre-Covid, the frequency and number of inspections of manufacturing plants in India by USFDA had increased significantly," analysts from ICICI Securities Research noted. "With growing ANDA filings, especially for complex products. "We expect this trend to return with the environment normalising," analysts from ICICI Securities Research noted.
Indian pharma cos get a shot in the arm in $12-bn Australian drug market
Rediff.com29 Apr 2022Indian drug firms get a shot in the arm in the $12 bn Australian drug market as the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), Australia agrees to accelerate the drug approval process in that country for Indian players who already have an approved plant and product from one of the stringent regulatory authorities like US, EU or Canada. From current sales of $340 mn, the Indian firms can see a significant upside in sales; felt Dinesh Dua, former chairman of the Pharmaceutical Exports Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), and the MD of Nectar Lifesciences. He highlighted that only 12 percent of the Australian drug market is generic, as against 80-90 per cent in the US or EU. Of this $1.5 bn generic drug market in India, Indian companies have a small share.
Why WHO suspended supply of Covaxin through UN agencies
Rediff.com4 Apr 2022Sources close to the development said the company had no further supply commitments to the WHO, and therefore, there was no suspension of any upcoming orders, reports Sohini Das.
Serum, Bharat Biotech halt Covid vaccine production as demand slips
Rediff.com4 Apr 2022Sources indicated that there were no fresh orders from the Government of India, and their supply commitments have ended as of March 31, reports Sohini Das.
Hospital chain plans to put expectant parents on cloud nine
Rediff.com1 Apr 2022No expecting mother ever needs to travel for more than 30 minutes to reach one of their hospitals, believes the Cloudnine group.
India's pharma cos hit by 'China-made disruptions'
Rediff.com31 Mar 2022With intermittent disruptions in the supply chain of raw materials from China, the Indian pharma industry has braced itself with bigger inventory. Even smaller drug makers are now carrying a month of buffer stock of key raw materials, said industry insiders. The lockdown in various Chinese provinces, including Shanghai, is likely to delay shipments by two weeks to a month, said domestic players. Shipments are critical for the Indian drug industry, which imports 70 per cent of its raw material from China.
'We have to ensure vaccines work against new variants'
Rediff.com11 Jan 2022Adar Poonawalla says it took a five-minute chat with his father Cyrus before making the decision to manufacture Covishield. The bet paid off, and handsomely. Serum Institute now has the capacity to make 4 billion doses of Covishield annually.
Covaxin shelf life extended, Bharat Biotech relabels old stocks
Rediff.com5 Jan 2022The company had in December said that the CDSCO had approved a 12-month shelf life for Covaxin, which was nine months earlier, Sohini Das reports.
Does India have enough jabs to expand vaccination drive?
Rediff.com3 Jan 2022A back of the envelope calculation shows that India has roughly over 680 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines consisting primarily of Covishield doses.