The Centre to become operational in the next three months
Based on the response of the industry, Pharmexcil would like to start an IPR and Regulatory Centre within the next three months at its Mumbai office. This decision was taken after two recent interactive meetings organised by the IPR and Regulatory Centre of Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), which was set up up by Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India to facilitate export of pharmaceuticals.
The first meeting on May 2, at Mumbai had Chaitanya Prasad, IAS, who has recently taken charge as Controller General of Patents Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM) and Dr Raja Shekar Vundru, IAS, Joint Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India.
This was followed by a seminar on IPR and Regulatory Matters on May 23 at Hyderabad. Both programmes were organised by Pharmexcil with the support of Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India.
While Prasad as head of CGPDTM promised to bring better access of patent database to the public, Vundru as Joint Secretary, DOP invited proposals relating to the pharma sector that were raised during the occasion.
Speaking as the Chief Guest at the May 23 seminar, Vundru highlighted the importance of IPR and spoke on the global trends relating to regulatory and intellectual property rights. He also ensured government support to the IPR and Regulatory Centre at Pharmexcil, Hyderabad for promoting IPR and Regulatory activities for the benefit of the pharma industry and to the pharma professionals. Based on the response of the industry, Pharmexcil would like to start IPR and Regulatory Centre within next three months at the Mumbai office.
Guest of Honour, Mridul Jain, Joint Secretary, DOC, GOI put forward the provision of schemes provided by the Government for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry.
According to a release, Pharmexcil subscribes to popular and expensive databases like Orbit patent database, Dialog Pro patent database, non-patent literature database for the members to best utilise the knowledge resources. Pharmexcil is also keen to add such additional knowledge databases for access by the members particularly SME category. The objective of IPR and Regulatory Centre at Pharmexcil is to bring awareness of such databases and cross the barrier so that both innovations and exports increase.
Dr PV Appaji, Director General, Pharmexcil revealed the changes made by European regulatory as directive with the introduction of a new term Falsified Medicinal Products and the impending danger to export of APIs to Europe are to due to proposed changes. He also informed the audience about Pharmaceutical Inspection Convention (PIC) and Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S) that brings out a mutual understanding among countries, drug regulatory authorities leading to inspection uniformity.
He put forward the benefits and asked the industry for appropriate feedback keeping in mind Micro, Small, Medium, large and Mega Industry relating to EU Directive and PIC/S. Dr GG Nair, IPR Advisor, Pharmexcil and other speakers made presentations with a view to create awareness relating to Intellectual Property Rights, Prior Art search, Patentability assessment and Freedom to Operate. He advised the members to best utilise the patent databases at Pharmexcil offices. Several case studies were discussed during the occasion.
NR Munjal, Chairman, Pharmexcil, spoke about the importance of intellectual property rights in the current scenario. Ashutosh Gupta, Vice Chairman, Pharmexcil highlighted the proposals made to Government of India on behalf of the pharma industry for some of regulatory protocol expenses as reimbursement.
Both programmes saw active participation of delegates which included CEOs, Head of Departments of IPR/Regulatory/Marketing from Ipca Laboratories, Indoco Remedies, USV, Natco Pharma, Glenmark, Smilax Laboratories, Aurobindo, Glochem India, Sri Krishna Pharmaceuticals, Mylan Laboratories, MSN Laboratories, Brilliant Bio Pharma, Lee Pharma, Nosch Labs, Divis Laboratories, Suven Laboratories etc.
EP News Bureau-Mumbai