Forty greenfield projects under the PLI schemes for manufacturing bulk drugs and medical devices were inaugurated on Saturday. This included 27 greenfield bulk drug projects and 13 manufacturing plants for medical devices.
Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said the PLI scheme’s success has reduced India’s dependence on imports for medicines, API and medical devices. Instead of importing goods worth Rs 75,000 crore, the country will now be exporting drugs and products worth Rs 75,000 crore, the minister said. He cited the example of Penicillin G, which India had stopped making for the last 30 years after large-scale dumping led to plants shutting down. Penicillin G will now be made in the country, with the plant expected to be operational in June, Mandaviya said.
The department of pharmaceuticals is implementing three PLI schemes — pharmaceuticals, bulk drugs and medical devices. Arunish Chawla, secretary of the department of pharmaceuticals, said for the PLI scheme for pharmaceuticals, the government has approved 55 applicants with an incentive outlay of Rs 15,000 crore.
As many as 138 products from 26 PLI applicants have been approved for greenfield manufacturing of medical devices with an outlay of Rs 3,420 crore.
Half of these projects were launched on Saturday. These were Allied Medical, Envision Scientific, Innvolution Healthcare, Majik Medical Solutions, Microtek New Technologies, Nipro India, Panacea Technologies, Philips Global Business Services, Polymed Medicure, Sahajanand Medical Technologies, Siemens Healthcare, Trivitron Healthcare and Wipro GE Healthcare.
The bulk drugs PLI includes manufacturing 41 bulk drugs with a total outlay of Rs 6,940 crore. The greenfield projects for this launched on Saturday include those from Amoli Organics, Andhra Organics, Anasia Labs, Aviran Pharmachem, Centrient Pharmaceuticals, Dasami Lab, Emmennar Pharma, Hazelo Lab, Honour Lab, Hindys Lab, Hetero Drugs, Globela Industries, Kreative Actives, Sadhana Nitro Chem, Meghmani, Symbiotec Pharma Lab.