On 26th February 2018, members of AMCHAM’s Medical Devices Committee and Pharmaceuticals Committee met with Mr. Darrel Ching, Principal Commercial Officer, U.S. Embassy. The meeting was held at the Boston Scientific office in Gurgaon and chaired by Mr. Prabal Chakraborty, Chairman – Medical Devices Committee, AMCHAM and Vice President and Managing Director, Boston Scientific India.

The objective of the meeting was to brief Embassy officials on the recent developments in the medical devices and pharmaceuticals sectors and to get their guidance on the way forward. Members of the medical devices industry highlighted some of the challenges in terms of the recent decision by the Government of India on capping of the price of coronary stents and further reducing the prices of drug eluting stents. Other issues included the public procurement order and trade margin rationalization implementation. Industry also mentioned how new product launches and bringing innovative technologies to India could suffer. From the pharma side, the issues highlighted included patent linkages and price controls. Members also suggested to work with the government and advocate for implementation of the new pharmaceuticals policy and Universal Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP).

Mr. Darrel Ching made a presentation on the advocacy by the Commercial Section of the Embassy and encouraged members to take their support for advocacy. He also informed that all the companies are going through a tough period and the Embassy had recently convened a roundtable involving other Embassies to find areas of common concerns.