To Set up VC Fund of Rs 500 cr corpus for the pharma industry

The Indian Government is gearing up to be a venture capitalist to the Pharma industy. It plans to set up 500-crore venture capital fund to boost domestic pharma industry and provide cheaper loans to entities looking to establish or upgrade manufacturing facilities.

A task force in the deparment of pharmaceuticals ( DoP) submitted a report titled 'Recommendations of the Task Force on Enabling Private Sector to lead the growth of Pharmaceutical Industry' to the Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar. The report suggested steps to boost the pharma industry to conform with the government’s agenda of 'Make in India'

"Pharmaceutical Department is working on a proposal for setting up of a venture capital fund with corpus of about Rs 500 crore. Once the proposal is finalised, it will be moved to the Finance Ministry," a source told PTI.

Besides this the task force has also submitted recommendations on a scheme of soft loan and interest subsidy to help manufacturers upgrade their facilities.

The government is also working on to approve six pharma parks this year at an estimated investment of Rs 180 crore to promote pharmaceuticals manufacturing as well as setting up a mechanism for single-window clearance for the pharmaceuticals industry.