constantly reviewing the situation on daily basis. Infact, a few hospitals have been issued show cause notices besides raids as well. The well-known healthcare providers in New Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Lucknow have been directly asked to explain the reasons behind overcharging patients. The details on minute by minute actions by the NPPA are also being tweeted by its twitter handle. The same are also being provided to the minister as well.
Way forward
“ Time for this sector to fly like butterfly and the pharmaceutical and medical devices to be spun off as a separate ministry of pharmaceutical and medical devices. I have recommended this to the Prime Minister and this request is under active consideration by the PM and PMO,” said the Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizer, Mr Ananth Kumar recently.
Notwithstanding the churning happening within it, the big day for domestic medical device industry has finally arrived. Having lived on the side-lines for years, the medical technology industry is one of the biggest opportunity areas in the bioscience sector. With number of patients having medical complications on rise, the growth could be gigantic if right policies are formulated at the right time. To boost‘ Make in India’ program and reduce import dependency, government has thus decided to include back medical device sector as one of the 25 flagship industry to steer the program. Rightly so, the government must now also try to rope in multinationals into the manufacturing plans. If they don’ t want to participate, it would be their choice yet
government must act in a non-partisan manner.
There is a broader consensus on the need for a robust regulatory system for devices market. Yet it must be in sync with making available the maximum opportunity areas for all the stakeholders. Neither can we achieve excellence by shooing away global investors and companies nor by ignoring our own set of SMEs, indigenous innovators and new age startups. The middle ground for all players should be created for equal opportunities to all. The moot point is that we must build a big medical technology industry in India but also take all the stakeholders into confidence.
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