A group of Indian pharmaceutical-manufacturers has urged the Thai Food and Drug Administration to shorten its approval period for new foreign drugs.

Raghuveer Kini, executive director of the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil), a group of Indian manufacturers, said the current average of around a year was too long considering that other countries took 4-5 months to approve an application for the registration of new drugs in the local market.

Sachin Gandhi, an Indian pharmaceutical-producer and director of Vital Healthcare Pvt Ltd, said speedy approval would promote trade and patients would get faster access.

He added that India was one of world's biggest pharmaceutical-producers with total turnover of US$10 billion (Bt378 billion) a year.

Kini said India aimed to boost capacity to $15 billion by 2010. It produces HIV/Aids and cancer drugs, antibiotics and anaesthetics.

Pharmexcil is a body set up by the government to promote the pharmaceutical industry. It has more than 2000 members. Ten of them are in Bangkok this week as part of an Asean visit including Burma and Indonesia.

Gandhi said that on Wednesday the delegation had raised the access issue at a meeting with the FDA, mentioning that delay in approval might harm prospects of developing new pharmaceutical products in Thailand.

The FDA responded by saying that it need take only 155 working days to approve registration.

Gandhi noted that India currently supplied 40 per cent of the raw materials used in pharmaceutical production worldwide and 8 per cent of finished drugs and that its biggest export market was the US.

"This shows that we pass the World Health Organisation's standards," he said.

While pharmaceutical products are not included in the prospective Thai-Indian free-trade agreement, Indian companies have been exporting an increasing number of pharmaceutical products to Thailand, worth $49 million from April 2004 to March 2005 and $53.43 million in the following fiscal year ending this March.

Gandhi said that on this trip the Indian delegates had contacted around 40 Thai companies to discuss business opportunities in both the distribution and joint-venture markets, noting that labour in India was still cheap.

He also said that some Indian manufacturers were interested in setting up joint ventures for logistical reasons.

"We want to be in the market, and these products from joint ventures can be re-exported to neighbouring countries," he said.

Asked what his advice was to the Thai drug industry, Gandhi said it should upgrade quality to meet the requirements of the World Health Organisation so as to make its products internationally acceptable.

Jeerawat Na Thalang

The Nation