Till some months ago, when several doctors led by Naresh Trehan left the hospital, the same area used to resemble a railway station -- such was the rush. It was a regular feature for patients to wait a couple of hours before the appointment with the doctors came through. Shivinder Mohan Singh, managing director of Fortis Healthcare which acquired the hospital from Escorts Ltd for Rs 585 crore (Rs 5.85 billion) in 2005, insists this only shows the efficiency of the doctors.
The tax holiday awarded by the Union Budget to healthcare and IT sectors has been greeted with enthusiasm. Major hospital chains had already announced plans to expand in tier 2 cities. The tax holiday has proved to be an added incentive. India needs 3.1 million new hospital beds in the next 10 years. The tax-holiday benefits are available for all new hospital projects except the ones coming up in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore & Ahmedabad.
Even as India is fast turning into the diabetes capital of the world, multinational drug companies are busy patenting new-generation diabetes medicines for exclusive marketing rights in the country.
Punjab is opposing Centre's area-based tax exemption policy while the underdeveloped states are lauding it as a "well deserved" package.
NPPA will begin analysing pricing trends of 74 bulk drugs that come under the government-notified price-controlled list every quarter.
Deals indicate growing interest of private equity firms in India's pharma and healthcare segments.
The move brings an additional 15 per cent of the retail medicine market worth over Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) under direct price control. All domestic companies, including drug majors like Ranbaxy, Cipla, Lupin and Dr Reddy's, have syrups and tonics in their product portfolio.
With anti-competitive practices of global pharma companies increasingly coming under regulatory scrutiny internationally, Indian public interest groups and the domestic medicine makers complain that India's competitive laws are not equipped to face a similar situation of monopoly in the sales of patent protected medicines in the country.
Over 300 life-saving medicines may become cheaper by at least 25 per cent, if the finance ministry considers a proposal by its chemicals and fertilisers counterpart to provide customs and excise duty waivers on all drugs that are part of the National List of Essential Medicines. The chemicals and fertilisers ministry proposal has been supported by pharma companies, who have also agreed to pass on the benefits of such waivers by slashing retail prices.
Reliance, Lifecell and Cryobank have emerged leaders in the stem cell banking sector.
Drug makers join the chyawanprash bandwagon with sugar-free variants.
Refusing to divulge identity of the companies, sources indicated that three of them are based in Delhi and the remaining are in Maharashtra.
The price regulatory pharma body has set limits to the extent pharma companies can increase the price of medicines in a year.
Karmayog, a leading NGO which recently carried out a CSR rating of top 500 Indian companies, says that only two drug companies - Dr Reddy's and Lupin - have done work on this front. While the two firms scored three out of five, 30 other drug firms failed to perform satisfactorily. Nine of the companies, including leading ones such as Nicholas Piramal, Panacea and Glenmark did not score at all.
Rathod, an IP professional attached to a global generic pharmaceutical company, draws hundreds of readers from across the IP space to his genericpharmaceuticals.blogspot.com.
Even as a lack of clarity in regulations is preventing Indian medical device manufacturers from making their presence felt in the $2 billion domestic medical equipment market, foreign players, mostly from the United States, are increasingly finding the country a preferred destination.
Days after medical representatives said their employers were flouting the government's drug-pricing norms, the pharmaceutical industry has decided to clip their wings. These companies want them to be no longer recognised as "workmen," a classification that gives them the right to form trade unions.
In another setback to Big Pharma, US drug major Eli Lilly's blockbuster erectile dysfunction drug Cialis (generic name:Tadalafil) has failed to qualify for a product patent in India after the basic constituent of the medicine was found to be a known substance, developed and patented by Indian scientists 32 years ago.
With 1,610 cases of detention of food and medicine consignments at various US ports of entry during the last 11 months, the products of Indian origin received the second largest number of import refusal reports (IRRs).
Pharma makers 'making a mockery' of price control, they say.
© 2025 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances