India Pharma Outlook Team | Wednesday, 17 September 2025
The government has planned for a Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma MedTech (PRIP) scheme to be rolled out this month. Amit Agrawal, Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), had said that August 2023 saw the debut of the scheme with a total expenditure of ?5,000 crore to energize the Indian pharmaceuticals and medical devices sectors through creative breakthroughs.
He further said that the idea underlying PRIP is to widen India’s global pharma footprint instead of just focusing on the country’s traditional generics forte. Global India presently pumps about $3 billion annually into pharma R&D which is way below the figure in the US ($60 billion) and China ($20 billion). “The emphasis must for the immediate future be on going-ahead areas in the pharma industry,” the notification stated.
This five-year plan will centre on six areas namely complex generics and biosimilars, precision medicine, medical devices, orphan drugs, antimicrobial resistance drug development, and new chemical entities. Subsidy will be offered for up to 35% of the project costs, or ?125 crore per project.
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While the experts in the field have expressed their happiness with the move, they have also raised concerns which include the setting of the royalty rate from 10% to 2–3%, as a manner to both allow the innovation and to ensure that the innovator gets a commercial advantage, improving the involvement of startups and MSMEs and making sure that the innovative idea is of commercial value.
One of the latest happenings in the industry, Glenmark’s $700-million licensing deal with AbbVie for a novel trispecific antibody, is just one example that demonstrates the promising transition of India into high-value drug development with the right support.
