Parliamentary panel suggests blanket ban on FDI in brown field pharma
NEW DELHI: A parliamentary committee today suggested a ‘blanket ban’ on FDI in existing pharmaceutical companies saying the policy in the sensitive sector should be dictated by public good.
The committee ‘strongly’ recommended the Commerce Department to take all measures to stop any further takeover or acquisition of domestic pharma units.
“The Committee is, therefore, of the considered opinion that the Government must impose a blanket ban on any FDI in brown field pharma projects,” Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce said in its report on ‘FDI in Pharmaceutical Sector’.
The panel was chaired BJP member Shanta Kumar. “This necessity becomes more telling in view of the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is not like any other industry/business. It is one sector of the economy which has to be dictated by public good rather than foreign investments, profit and revenue,” it said.
It said FDI in brown field pharma projects would jeopardise the entire health and intellectual property framework of India in terms of access and affordability of medicines.
The Committee was convinced that FDI has failed to bring about any real change in the existing pharma R&D environment as domestic companies are still to gain the competence and capacity to achieve cutting-edge drug innovation by carrying a new compound through all stages of research up to marketing.
“After all these years of FDI in drugs and pharmaceuticals sector, India is still weak in laboratory stage drug discovery,” it said adding takeover and acquisitions are adversely impacting the exports.
“…export performance in dollar terms during 2012- 13 has not been satisfactory as compared to the past two years. The targeted figure of USD 24 billion exports would be difficult to achieve by the projected time-line of March, 2014,” it said.
It said FDI in brown field pharma has encroached upon India’s generics base and adversely affected the industry.
It also said collaboration between foreign and domestic pharma companies has served western markets more than the needs of the local population.
The report said FDI flow into brown field projects has not added fresh capacity in terms of production, distribution network or asset creation to the desired level.
“As a result, significant strides have not been made in creating fresh jobs and transfer of technology…the Department concerned must take desired steps to come up with optimal policy formulation in this regard.,” it added.
Further, it feared that these MNCs can change or tweak the product mix and can go from producing generics into branded or even more expensive patented medicines.
“Its direct impact will be on the availability of the cheapest priced generics for Indian population which may decrease substantially,” it said.
The report said once a foreign company takes over an Indian firm, it gets the marketing network of the major domestic companies and through that it changes the product mix and pushes the products which are more expensive.
“Internationally, because of its huge network and access to other markets, it can block our smaller domestic companies from establishing their presence in the global market,” it said.
