AMCHAM members of the Pharmaceuticals Committee met on 25th July, 2018 at the MSD office in Gurugram. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Sanjiv Navangul, Chairman – Pharmaceuticals Committee, AMCHAM and Managing Director, Janssen and Ms. Jyotsna Ghoshal, Co-Chair – Pharmaceuticals Committee, AMCHAM and Executive Director, Public Policy and Corporate Affairs, MSD. Other members present included Mr. Vivek Vasudev Kamath (via video conferencing), MD, MSD, Mr. Dibakar Bhattacharya, Director Corporate Affairs and PRA, Eli Lilly, Ms. Priya Hingorani, VP, Janssen, Mr. Sampathkumar, Director, Par Formulations, Mr. Balinder Singh, Dua Associates, Mr. Rajii Chibber, Associate Director, MSD, Ms. Nahid Zaman, Assistant Manager, MSD and Mr. Rajiv Arora, Senior Manager, MSD. Mr. Chad Norberg, Trade and Technology Unit Chief, U.S. Embassy, and Ms. Komal Kalha (via phone), USPTO from the U.S. Embassy joined the meeting. AMCHAM was represented by Mr. Gaurav Mendiratta.

Members deliberated and suggested their ideas on reviving the committee, which has struggled to get participation from members in the past, and agreed to leverage the AMCHAM platform which enjoys a strong connection with the U.S. Embassy. It was also suggested to strengthen the engagement with the U.S. Embassy and increase the frequency of interactions of members and the Embassy. The committee decided to work on increasing the membership of the committee by reaching out to U.S. based companies not yet members of AMCHAM.

Members also took the opportunity to highlight concerns regarding issues such as clinical trials and IPR related issues and it was decided that AMCHAM could focus on these two issues for advocacy with the government. It was also decided to create 3 sub-groups namely – clinical trials, IPR and pricing which will start to work on a position paper for each of the shortlisted areas. Mr. Chad Norberg shared an update on the ongoing bilateral talks between India and the U.S. as well as Embassy engagement on several issues with their Indian counterparts.