Union Budget 2019 — What does the Indian Pharma Industry seek?

The pharma sector could be incentivized in the budget for adopting global practices and standards which enable counterfeit detection and authentication

"The vision of GS1 India is to significantly enhance patient safety through the elimination of medication errors, track and trace, product recalls, counterfeit detection & authentication of medicines and medical devices. The pharma sector could be incentivized in the budget for adopting global practices and standards which enable counterfeit detection and authentication."

Expectations of the pharmaceutical sector from the upcoming budget include an increase in the tax exemption on preventive health check-up under section 80-D of Income Tax Act 1961, reduction in corporate tax, formulation of schemes for pharma start-ups, etc

"India has the largest number of US FDA compliant plants (more than 262 including APIs) outside of the USA and it has nearly 1400 WHO-GMP approved Pharma Plants, 253 European Directorate of Quality Medicines (EDQM) approved plants with modern state of the art Technology. The above facilitates are conducive for manufacturing of global capacity of APIs. Therefore, the allocation of funds by the government is expected to create mega-parks for manufacturing of APIs in India. This would assist not only in reducing India’s dependence on other countries for APIs but also attract investments.

From the perspective of duties/levies relating to pharma products, the customs duty on implants is high and therefore it is expected that the Government would address this area in order to make implantation of medical devices affordable for the Indian population. On the other hand, indigenous manufacturing of medical devices/equipment is required to be promoted by extending incentives to medical devices/equipment manufacturers.

On the policies front, the Government has taken certain policy initiatives for strengthening R&D for the Pharma industry, for instance, fiscal incentives to R&D units sector. However, the present schemes are not sufficient to attract R&D activities and additional allocation for Science and Technology is expected by the pharmaceutical industry.

Further, the pharmaceutical sector has witnessed as one of the major beneficiaries of the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) introduced by the Government of India. Therefore, this Scheme should be continued to extend the duty benefits to the pharmaceutical sector. The other expectations of the pharmaceutical sector from the upcoming budget include an increase in the tax exemption on preventive health check-up under section 80-D of Income Tax Act 1961, reduction in corporate tax, formulation of schemes for pharma start-ups, etc."

(The government is expected to facilitate) pharma companies in India to become cost-competitive globally by capping trade price margins for drugs, as proposed by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA)

"To continue with the initiative of providing affordable and accessible healthcare, the government is expected to make new announcements in the healthcare sector this Union Budget, with a focus on universal healthcare. Some expectations are as follows:

Direction to influence rationalisation of GST

Facilitating pharma companies in India to become cost-competitive globally by capping trade price margins for drugs, as proposed by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA)

Enhanced weighted deduction for R&D expenditure for manufacturing of less expensive drugs"

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