Pharma Budget 2022

India needs to build a vibrant ecosystem to emerge as an innovation hub in generics: Poornachandra Tejasvi, Senior Director, Emerging Markets India, Informa Pharma Intelligence

India should continue to build on public health programmes and provide further momentum to its COVID-19 vaccination effort. Higher public spending on healthcare is critical to reduce out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures; healthcare allocation as a percentage of GDP needs to be bolstered sharply. The previous budget referred to plans for critical initiatives under the Aatma Nirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana including setting up mobile hospitals, a national institution for “One Health,” nine Bio-Safety Level III laboratories and four regional National Institutes for Virology. The pandemic has clearly showed these efforts/areas need further acceleration.

In addition, if India wants to emerge as an innovation hub moving beyond its prowess in the generics space, it needs to build a vibrant ecosystem. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s clarion call at a recent industry summit was: Ideate in India, Innovate in India, Make in India and Make for the World. Budgetary impetus to develop the innovation ecosystem, support for industry’s R&D efforts whether by way of tax breaks, further support to the National Research Foundation, other incentives to life science start-ups in cutting-edge areas such as cell and gene therapy are all areas that could do with more attention.

Budget should focus on strengthening and promoting preventive healthcare services : Sanjaya Mariwala, Executive Chairman and Managing Director, OmniActive Health Technologies, and Founder President, Association of Herbal and Nutraceuticals Manufacturers of India (AHNMI)

As we are preparing to fight the third wave and further strengthen the health of the nation, 2022 budget should focus on strengthening and substantially promoting the preventive healthcare services. Young India is highly focussed on preventive care and overall well-being. Rising awareness has significantly added to the demand for dietary supplements and other nutra products. We urge the government to look at the socio-economic benefits that the nutraceutical sector offers and extend its support for the sector. Three things, if rolled out immediately, will help in enhancing the nutritional index of the population, and, the same time, expand exports manifold.

• PLI scheme for the nutraceutical sector: There is a need to focus on building an agri-supply chain, robust research and development of infrastructure and encourage innovation. This is where the PLI scheme can contribute monetarily and non-monetarily at all levels of research, technology and manufacturing.

• Promotive taxation: As compared to the pharma sector, nutra products are taxed higher. We need to look at giving equal importance to the nutraceutical sector and bring more progressive taxations in line with the pharma products. Currently, pharma products are taxed between five to 12 per cent, while nutra products are taxed at 18 per cent. The pandemic has proven that it is people’s behaviour and immunity system that will determine the course of the pandemic. A report by Global Wellness Economy identified an upsurge in immunity-focussed food consumption and supplement use due to COVID-19. For a healthy nation, it is important to promote nutra products and pricing will play a crucial role in the consumption habits given the purchasing power of a larger population.

• Including corporates under NMPB scheme: The National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB), along with AYUSH and herbal industry bodies, are working towards promoting medicinal plant cultivation. Corporates and industry players should also be included as part of the scheme to encourage backward and vertical integration. This will also ensure higher cultivation by the industry players to facilitate clinical research.

There is a need to create a department of nutraceuticals and dietary supplements : Amit Srivastava, Chief Catalyst, Nutrify Today

“There is a need to create a department of nutraceuticals and dietary supplements along with HSN codes to have a systematic classification of goods. The government needs to provide aid of Rs 100 crore incubation fund. This will provide growth impetus to the sector. Formulation of Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme is something that the sector is desperately looking out for in order to become more robust and contribute extensively towards the development of the country’s economy. The utmost important part that the government can do to help the sector flourish is by creating a department for the nutra sector under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.”