From Editor's Desk

This issue highlights four different but critical issues of relevance to the Indian Medical Device Industry, namely Regulatory transformation taking place, the effect of Minimum Retail Prices (MRP) on the growth of medical device manufacturing industry in India, Export Opportunities and lastly importance of healthcare plastics recycling in hospitals on Environment, Public Health, Economy and Job creation.

First of all, on behalf of the Indian Industry and “MEDICAL PLASTICS DATA SERVICE”, WE WELCOME AND WELCOME OUR NEW YOUNG AND DYNAMIC DRUGS CONTROLLER GENERAL OF INDIA, DR . V.G.SOMANI and look forward to his support and guidance to achieve our Hon. Prime Minister’s Vision of “Make-In-India” very fast.

Mr. D.L. Pandya

Editor

In a recently held Conference jointly organized by AiMeD and BCIL , Dr Somani very elaborately shared the updates on Medical Device Regulations in India along with the Key Features of Roadmap ahead. The highlights of his presentations including achievements by CDSCO for the benefit of Industry starting from Classification of Medical Devices and IVDs to introduction of Materio-Vigilance Programme as well as actions taken to support exporters are included in this issue. In the road map ahead, Dr. Somani explained the action plan on how the new revised Medical Device Rules will be implemented.

Mr Rajiv Nath, Forum Co-ordinator, “AiMeD” explained how the practice of Excessive MRP on the finished product labels has been a bottleneck for the growth of manufacturing sector in India. Through a detailed analysis as reproduced in this issue, Mr Rajiv Nath has explained that while the ex-factory prices are going down, creating artificial inflation by using high MRP as selling tool, the manufacturing growth is stifled.

Mr S. Abidi, Research Advisor, Ahmedabad Management Association, in his article on “Export Opportunities For Medical Devices In Africa” has given a very informative analysis for the features of the African market and the opportunities for Indian Manufacturers / Exporters of Medical Devices.

Apart from the growth, the Medical Device Industry as part of the Health-Care ecosystem has also to be responsible towards various issues of concern to the society like Environment, adverse effect on Public Health, support to the economy and also Job Creation. As a part of our research activities, we carried out desk research on how recycling of Healthcare Plastics Waste in Hospitals can contribute to the above objectives while satisfying the current Biomedical Waste Treatment Regulations. As explained in the article in this issue, it was also found that there is also very good commercial potential in recycling healthcare / medical plastics waste particularly commonly used materials like PVC. We acknowledge the support and contribution of Mr V R Patel, CEO, Vir Enviro Management & Former Deputy Chief Environmental Engineer, Gujarat Pollution Control Board.

Under the column “Did You Know”, various reasons for the Healthcare Waste Management Failure are explained along with how it can be improved as given by WHO. This issue also covers our regular columns like Industry & Regulatory News, Product Gallery etc..

D.L. Pandya