Hyderabad: Industries and commerce minister K.T. Rama Rao said that Telangana state has attracted investments to the tune of Rs 6,400 crore in the life sciences sector in the last one year, which had also created 31,000 jobs.
Delivering the BioAsia 2022 inaugural address here on Thursday, Rao said that this highlights the vibrant impact of the city’s life sciences ecosystem.
Specifically mentioning the contribution of the state in tackling the pandemic, he said two of the three indigenous Covid vaccines — Covaxin and Corbevax — were developed by Hyderabad-based companies.s.
“Genome Valley’s prominence has been recognised globally during Covid-19. An equally notable continuation of the same expertise is that the two vaccines that are approved for children are also from here,” he said.
The minister said that the pandemic has brought the spotlight on the life sciences industry and the need to build qualitative healthcare systems. This has been exemplified to robust levels by Telangana State. "We have to now assess our current position and deliberate on the imperatives for a sustained future growth”, Rao added.
“I am proud that Hyderabad is a globally acknowledged name in life sciences. Genome Valley is seeing an expansion of several pharmaceutical companies. We are inching closer to the launch of the world’s largest pharmaceutical cluster, the Hyderabad Pharma City. It has been planned with an advanced environmental infrastructure and driven with the objective of increasing cost-competitiveness of the industry to eventually offer quality medicines at affordable prices,” he said.
The minister urged the Centre to back the industry and look into how pricing pressures can be balanced with strong volume growth. “India has a prominent presence in the global pharmaceutical industry given its status as the pharmacy capital of the world. While India ranks third in terms of volume, we are only 14th in terms of value in the global pharma market. There is a huge gap in value and volume contribution, which can be filled only by moving up in the value chain,” Rao said.
