Gandhinagar: Indian drugmakers need to meet US standards if they want to continue exporting to the country, US secretary, Health and Human Services (HSS) Xavier Becerra said Friday.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the G20 Health Ministers’ Meet, Becerra said, “Meeting the drug standards would not only help India continue its trade with the US specifically but also maintain the standards and its growth graph moves across the world.” He added India was an indispensable partner in helping the US meet its pharmaceutical needs.
In the past year, the image of Indian pharmaceutical companies has taken a beating after several countries, including The Gambia, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Micronesia and Marshall Islands, alleged they had supplied contaminated drugs, including cough and cold syrups.
The US Food and Drugs Administration (US FDA), too, on several occasions, issued warnings to several top pharmaceutical companies supplying generic drugs to the country, on account of violations in the FDA-compliant good manufacturing practices.
As per details shared by the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India under the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, the US is the largest exporting partner of India and the country also has the maximum number of FDA approved manufacturing sites outside the USA.
Stressing that India remains one of the most important partners in maintaining drug supply across the world, Becerra said the US seeks deeper co-operation and standardisation of drugs that would make it possible to have Indian-manufactured drugs accepted by everyone across the world.
“India is at a crucial and much stronger juncture today than what it was a few decades ago and we are looking at seeing it expand its capacity,’’ he said.
He added that US participation in the G20 meeting was a clear signal of the deepening relationship with India, saying it would pay dividends for both countries.
“It will pay dividends for the world because I believe people see India and the US to be global leaders,’’ Becerra said, adding that the US has a very strong relationship with India when it comes to pharmaceutical products.
“In fact, we depend on India, India depends on us and together we can both thrive when it comes to making sure medicines are available not just to our people but to the world,” remarked.
The US secretary for HSS also said that during his session with the Indian health minister one of the issues discussed was “how we make sure that we’re coordinating, collaborating when it comes to the safety and availability of pharmaceutical medicines”.
Becerra also conceded to the recent shortage of some select drugs (for diseases such as cancer, flu) in his country and said that top US FDA officials would be in India shortly to ensure there was no break in the supply chain of medicines that may put people in the US under stress.
Talking about the US’s commitment to G20 outcomes and how lessons learned during the Covid pandemic had impacted the ongoing G20 meet, Becerra said: “Covid has taught us that nobody is safe until everyone is safe. G20 is a step in the right direction where we have gathered as a community to commit to a protocol on how we deal with preparation and response to future health threats — pandemic or otherwise.”
During the pandemic, he said, both India and the US showed that these countries have the capacity to counter the health crisis as both came-up with vaccines for its citizens.
“I think Covid taught us to work together and that taught us the importance of G20-like meets,” he said.
“We are also getting ready for the upcoming world health assembly scheduled for next year,” he said, adding that climate change and its intersectionality with health was also an area of vital importance. He said these chapters were interrelated and affected everyone.
“We are very appreciative that India has made this one of the priorities,” the secretary said.
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