Dr Bhargave said that Asia's biotech industry was the fastest-growing sector in the global pharmaceutical industry and given India's technical power, capabilities, favourable infrastructure and requisite value structure, India could easily become the leader in drug manufacturing.

He visualised opportunities for India in the area of vaccines, DNA probes, MAB's for diagnosis, biochemical sensors for diagnosis, drugs through genetically modified microbes, peptide drugs and drugs through marine sources.

Dr Bhargave outlined several initiatives that the government as well as industry should undertake and stressed the need for a people-oriented role involving the medicare industry for developing a health and medical policy for the country.

In an overview of the 'projections and imperatives' of the pharma industry, Shalini Pillay, associate director, KPMG Advisory Services Pvt Ltd emphasised the need for networking within the pharmaceutical industry and growth strategies to boost R & D and sales productivity. For leveraging the opportunities in the pharma industry mergers and acquisitions would boost the top line and bring in new products.

A networked pharma industry, according to Satish Reddy, MD & COO, Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd, is an emerging growth model and should cater to increased shareholder value, economic value and net profit. The projections and imperatives study aims at identifying competition among Indian players eliminate price erosion, sustainability of growth and profitability, increased investment requirements and finally transitioning to a global position.

Reddy also talked about the emerging trends and the Indian pharma market, where big pharma companies are under pressure because of increased research and development expenditure, rising costs, poorly understood new technologies and the need for innovations.

To overcome these pressures, Sunil Mehra, vice president, health care group, DSP Merrill Lynch, suggested fully leveraging domestic skills and access larger international markets by exploiting the global opportunity in generics and develop brand / specialty businesses.