Top vaccine firms unite to check China’s inroads into Indian market - Hindustan Times
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Top vaccine firms unite to check China’s inroads into Indian market

Hindustan Times, Pune | ByNozia Sayyed
Sep 22, 2018 03:24 PM IST

Form Vaccine Manufacturer’s Association of India, to be headed by SII’s Adar Poonawalla

Aggressive in-roads by China into the Indian vaccine market is among the factors that have led top Indian vaccine manufacturers to come together and form an association.

Leading vaccine manufacturers, such as Serum Institute of India (SII), Bharat Biotech, Biological Evans and Panacea Biotec, have come together to form the first-of-its-kind ‘Vaccine Manufacturer’s Association of India (VMAI)’.(AFP)
Leading vaccine manufacturers, such as Serum Institute of India (SII), Bharat Biotech, Biological Evans and Panacea Biotec, have come together to form the first-of-its-kind ‘Vaccine Manufacturer’s Association of India (VMAI)’.(AFP)

Leading vaccine manufacturers, such as Serum Institute of India (SII), Bharat Biotech, Biological Evans and Panacea Biotec, have come together to form the first-of-its-kind ‘Vaccine Manufacturer’s Association of India (VMAI)’.

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The association, formed last month, will be led by Pune-based Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer (CEO) of SII, as its president.

Speaking to HT, Poonawalla said, “It is a first-of-its-kind association. It constitutes four of the vaccine manufacturers from India that support the government immunisation programme and private health markets in terms of supplying vaccines for life-threatening diseases.”

Poonawalla said one of the objectives of the association would be to help “create a level playing field and fair trade in terms of import and export of vaccines when it comes to countries, like Korea, China and other developed world markets.” According to him, trade practices were one-sided and against the interest of India especially when it came to China and Korea.

“Since the association is already global in the sense that the Indian vaccine manufacturers contribute to about 60 per cent of the vaccines made in the world so it anyway has an international outreach of its nature,” he said.

Besides this, the association would seek faster clearance processes, such as single-window clearance for fast-tracking proceedings.

Issues, such as meaningful reforms in the public healthcare system, unfair trade practices, redundant policies, red tapeism and introduction and accessibility of life-saving drugs that help combat long-term illnesses, will be taken up by the association.

Poonawalla pointed out that as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) data, the trend of mortality and morbidity was decreasing in the world with the uptake of vaccines in a given area of population. Hence it will be an important step for the association to work together alongside the government authorities.

An expert on the subject who declined to be identified said that aggressive Chinese forays into the Indian vaccine market was among the factors that led to the creation of the association.

“This puts India at a major disadvantage as it disallows home-grown companies to expand their reach and accessibility in the global and domestic market. This accidentally exerts pricing pressure in the domestic market and increases the chances of regulatory scrutiny of vaccines from India. Hence it is extremely important to gain the attention of the government authority and formulate policies that helps not only vaccine manufacturers, but also the public health system,” he said.

Last month, the drug controller general of India banned the import of rabies vaccine from Chinese vaccine manufacturer Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences, which was found to have faked records and ordered to stop production earlier this month by China’s drug controller.

Officials familiar with the matter said the vaccine was imported by India and procured by both private and government centres that administer it for protection from rabies, which is 100 per cent fatal, but can be prevented by vaccination.

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