India has triple advantage of cost, quality and scale in pharma sector: DoP Secretary S Aparna

Underlining the importance of skills like agility, ability to overcome redundancy and creativity at every to keep pace with the changing trends in the pharma and health sector, she said: "There are three strands which we should focus on -- regulatory framework, research framework along with the resources including fiscal and talent."

Aparna said that the collaboration between large companies and start-ups, industry and academia collaboration by making public research more accessible and collaboration across sectors including the drug, devices sector along with the digital sector will be the main pillar of growth in the years to come.

As we march ahead and aspire to be a global pharma leader by 2047, differentiation based on innovation will be the key in achieving this objective, she added.

Speaking on the occasion, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, said that the paradigm of health has shifted from health to wellness to well-being in the last eight years.

Health is not limited to what happens in a hospital or between a patient and pharmacy; health is much more than that.

"We will witness the bulging of the population pyramid which would mean that our youth population will be dominant and elder people will enjoy a good quality of life. However, issues relating to geriatric health and medicines, mental health and other NCDs will become important. Hence, we would need to ensure focussed research on equity and access to drugs and diagnostics in the years to come," he added.

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