New Delhi : Even as the government using Trade Margin Rationalisation (TMR) as the pricing mechanism is appreciated, the research-based medical devices industry is seeing various protectionist measures like health chess, the current form of public procurement order (PPO) and other policy challenges which should be revisited by the government to attract better investment to the sector, says Pavan Choudary, chairman & director general, Medical Technology Association of India (MTaI).
In an interview to Pharmabiz, he said, “MTaI has been advocating for nuanced policies which promotes R&D, helps in ease of doing business in India and augment FDI in the sector.”
After much deliberation, the government is now using Trade Margin Rationalization as the pricing mechanism, which is appreciated by the industry. However, there are other protectionist measures like health cess, public procurement order, etc which are hampering the investment in this sector.
“Our request remains to remove the former (health cess) and revisit the second (PPO) policy,” he added.
Some of the concerns of the industry, which need urgent attention by the government to include removal of price capping in the medical devices sector, as having one price for one category of medical device ignores the efforts put into usage of innovative technologies and in long term raises sustainability concerns.
Trade margin rationalization as the price regulation mechanism, which is also acknowledged by NPPA as an effective and rational procedure, should have acceptance. The customs duty on the import of medical devices should be reduced.
With its aim to be a global manufacturing hub, India needs to have a clear stand on its trade policies. As the geo-political churn forms new groups and forges new alliances among nations, the preference is moving from trading with all nations to trading with those which share similar political dispensations, market systems and shared histories of peace. From random off-shoring, the world is moving towards friend-shoring.
As a step in moving forward for this friend-shoring, the government should also revisit the PPO policy to check existing local manufacturing capacity and to allow other friendly countries to participate in central government procurement without the requirement of defined local content.
There should be a single window clearance for Ease of doing business, as having multiple regulators in India adds to the compliance burden and cost to the manufacturer and in turn causes delay in access of quality medical devices to patients.
However, the opportunity is that apart from being the pharmacy of the world and IT support centre of the world, India is also emerging as a hub for the source of healthcare worker (HCW) talent. India is the world’s largest source of immigrant physicians and second only to the Philippines in training nurses in the world.
Further, the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship (MSDE) recently announced that it would supply over 300,000 healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, and allied health personnel, to the countries the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, Australia, Japan, Sweden, and Singapore by 2022.
MTaI along with its member companies train over 2 lakh healthcare workers annually and we keep emphasising on continuous skill building of HCWs to stay updated of the current technologies especially in the field of MedTech, he added.
