New Delhi : The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) has initiated efforts to address the issue faced by the Central government’s procurement agencies including the Ministry of Railways and Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) in procuring 213 medicines including antibiotics, anti-diabetes and others for which these agencies could not find eligible local suppliers.
The DoP has received various representations from these Central Procuring Agencies regarding non-availability of Class I or Class II suppliers for a list of 213 medicines. The list of medicines has now been put on the public domain through a public notice by the DoP, recognising that the manufacturers of these drugs may be spread across the country and they should be given a reasonable opportunity.
The notice is to collect details of local manufacturers, manufacturing the alternate and equivalent medicines for smooth implementation of the Public Procurement Policy which gives preference to domestic manufacturers with sufficient local content.
The DoP has issued a guideline on December 30, 2020, for implementing the provisions of Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order (PPO), 2017, to encourage Make in India and promote manufacturing and production of goods and services related to pharmaceutical sector in India with a view to enhance income and employment.
Under the guideline, the public procurement agencies should purchase minimum local content for pharmaceutical formulations from Class I local suppliers – suppliers with local content equal or more than 80 per cent – and Class II local suppliers – with local content of more than 50 per cent but less than 80 per cent. Another categorisation as per the guideline is the non-local suppliers, who have local content less than or equal to 50 per cent.
A five-member Committee chaired by the managing director of Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals Ltd was also formed through the notification in December, 2020, to independently verify the self declaration of the bidders.
The latest notice inviting local manufacturers for the Public Procurement is for medicines including anticoagulants, apixaban tablets or capsules, aftanib 20 mg tablet 30 mg and 40 mg, biphasic insulin lispro IP and injection, brolucizumab, buprenorphine transdermal patch, canagliflozin tablet, ceftaroline 600 mg/vial, ceritinib tablets or capsules, cetuximab 100 mg and 500 mg, dapagliflozin 10 mg tablets, detemir insulin 100iu/ml 3ml pen, dulaglutide injection, inactivated influenza vaccine, emicizumab injection, empagliflozin 10 mg tablet (Jardiance), golimumab, haemostatic, hum along mix 50 pencil 75/25,25, human albumin, human coagulation factor VII injection, ranibizumab injection, insulin glargine, lenvatinib tablet or capsule, linagliptin 5 mg, novomix-50, pembrolizumab injection, pneumococcal vaccine, among others.
DoP requested the local manufacturers of these drugs to share their details to the Department till 5.30 pm on March 15, 2022.
“If no information is received by the due date, further action will be taken, on the basis that local manufacturers are not available for these drugs,” said the notice.
It may be noted that the DoP has recently released a list of medical devices in the Class I and II category seeking the manufacturer’s details as the procurement agencies could not identify domestic suppliers. Following the notice, the DoP has identified representation from around 63 stakeholders.
