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The
Indian healthcare sector and budget 2003-04
Highlights
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Recognised
as a knowledge-based industry with great export potential
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Hospitals
: Investments into healthcare sector should now go up
substantially with the proposed extension of tax benefits to
financial institutions, which provide capital to private
hospitals with 100 beds or more.
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Medical
Equipments : Reduction in customs duty on specified life
saving equipments from 25 percent to 5 percent and their
exemption from CVD can
bring down the cost of investing in technology in
hospitals and other healthcare institutions. The revised rate of
depreciation at 40 percent from 25 percent – a
significant sop for healthcare sector.
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Pharmaceutical
Industry : The budget has given a definite boost to the
research and development activity with a string of incentives
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Clinical
Trials : The government knows well that conducting clinical
and pre-clinical trials is going to be a big business in India
in the years to come. A good number of MNCs, CROs and some
Indian companies are already into clinical trials in a big way.
New incentives should attract many more R&D ventures into
the country. Encouraging pharma industry to build a strong
research and development base is extremely important to take it
to the next phase of growth.
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Health
Insurance : Provisions
on health insurance will make a difference to the quality
of life, thereby promoting demand for the sector
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Bulk
drugs and other chemicals
: But the decision to reduce the peak customs duty on
bulk drugs and other chemicals to 25 percent from 30 percent is
not in the overall interest of the domestic industry. Import
requirement of bulk drugs has been on the increase for some
years now with discontinuation of a large number of essential
drugs by the domestic companies. A 5 percent cut in customs
duty, at this stage, will make imports more attractive and can
discourage existing bulk drug producers. Growing dependence on
other countries for bulk actives could destabilize India's
pharma industry in the long run.
( Abstracts from the full text of Indian Finance Minister Jaswant
Singh's address to Parliament while presenting the federal budget
for fiscal 2003-04 )
(Ref:
The Economic Times, March 02, 2003)
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ASTHMA
INHALERS: Nicholas in talks to market Ivax asthma inhalers
INDIAN
pharma major Nicholas Piramal (NPIL) is in talks with the $1.2bn
American drugmaker Ivax, to market the latter’s asthma inhalers in
India. The talks have been going on for some months now, but
no agreement has been reached, a company source said.
Ivax’s
worldwide respiratory business did sales of approximately $225m (Rs
1,080 crore) in ’01 and is growing fast. NPIL already has a
relationship with Ivax since it has worked with its UK subsidiary on
joint drug development.
A
market dominated by Cipla, the country’s second largest drugmaker,
Cipla has captured 75% of the Rs 225 crore a year inhalation therapy
market with aggressive pricing and functional inhalers.
Galaxo-Smithkline,
the country’s largest drugmaker by market share sells in the
premium end of the market and enjoys a strong franchise with
specialists, especially in metros.
Other
players include German Remedies, Sun Pharma, Kopran and AstraZeneca.
The
Indian anti-asthma market is valued at Rs 420 crore, growing at
about 17%. According to the Asthma Foundation of India about
10% of the Indian population suffers from asthma.
[Ref: Economic Times,
Jan. 07, 2003]
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ANGIOPLASTY
: Transradial approach an alternative to angioplasty, Yashoda conducts
200 procedures
Doctors
at Hyderabad’s Yashoda Hospitals have successfully been able to
approach the heart through the artery in the hand instead of the
thigh. Usually to map or repair the heart, or deploy a stent, a
catheter is inserted in the groin region and slowly pushed up to the
heart under the guidance of image intensifiers. The new route
through the radial artery in the hand, known in medical parlance as
transradial approach, presents and alternative to reduce some
complications documented in traditional approach (femoral), according
to Dr Raghu, who headed the surgical team in the new method.
Yashoda
is the only hospital in Hyderabad doing this new technique and has
performed almost 180-200 operations. It costs between Rs
5,000-10,000 depending on the nature of the case, Dr Raghu told
Chronicle Pharmabiz.
The
new approach allows immediate mobilisation of the patient, thus
improving the patient comfort and reducing the duration of
hospitalisation. As the radial artery is a small artery of 2-2.5
mm diameter, it entails the usage of finer equipment and technique so
that the patient does not experience much pain. In addition, due
to the usage of finer equipment and also as the radial artery is
supported by a strong bony bed, the vascular complications are almost
negligible. Both angiography and angioplasty with stenting
procedures could be done safely by this approach, according to Dr
Raghu.
Compared
to the femoral approach, transradial technique needs specialised
training and steep learning curve to familiarize with this technique.
Coronary angiography and angioplasty are traditionally performed
through the thigh for accessing the heart vessels. Patients who
undergo the femoral procedure experience severe back pain and at times
urinary retention, secondary to prolonged immobilisatino. In
addition, due to the long duration of immobilisation and consequent
back pain, patients can have a fall in blood pressure.
Another
important problem with the femoral approach is the vascular and
bleeding complications. These complications occur in 2-4 per
cent of patients and may require blood transfusions or surgery.
They thus contribute to patient morbidity, prolongation of
hospitalization and increasing the overall procedure cost. Such
complications are more likely to occur if the angioplasty is performed
under treatment with certain drugs, especially in the setting of heart
attack or unstable angina.
Dr
Raghu is a specialist in Transradial Angiography, Angioplasty and drug
coated stents. He had been trained under Dr Thierry Lefevre at
the Institute of Cardiovascualr, Paris. Dr Lefevre, was in
Hyderabad recently to supervise the operation.
[Ref: Pharmabiz,
Feb. 2003 Vol - 3/11]
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Diagnostic
kits freed from duty
THE government
has decided to free exporters of non-critical diagnostic kits to the
country from payment of import registration fee. The exemption
would be available to hundreds of products including kits fro
diagnosing TB, diabetes, tumour markers as well as kits for organ
function tests for liver, kidney etc. The exemption would also
cover pregnancy detection kits and various molecular diagnostic
materials and bio-markers.
As per the import registration norms
announced last year by the health ministry-to be effective from
March 31 ’03, any entity wanting to export a pharmaceutical
product to India would have to pay a fee of $1,500 per entity and
$1,000 per product as registration fee. “We have decided to
exempt non-critical diagnostic kits from the registration fee,” an
official from the Directorate General of health Services told ET.
[Ref: The Economic
Times, Jan. 01, 2003]
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PACKAGING
NORMS: Finmin to review packaging charge norms
THE ministry of
finance will soon commence an exercise for review of the conversion
costs and packaging charges norms for the drug industry on behalf of
the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority.
The
mandate to review the CC&PC norms, which would lead to
introduction of new methodology for estimating the cost of
pharmaceutical conversion, has been given to the cost accounting
wing of MoF, government sources said.
CC
and PC are the two major components of drug manufacturing cost that
weigh most on the prices which the government fixes for controlled
bulk drugs and formulations.
[Ref: The Economic
Times, Jan. 22, 2003]
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