In view of the second wave, India has approached US companies seeking investment in pharmaceutical, medical devices sector.
India's Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu has held virtual meetings with Alberta Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, Thermo Fisher CEO Marc Casper, Bernd Brust, the chairman and CEO of Antylia Scientific, and Joseph Repp, the CEO of Pall Life Sciences.
He has also had a call with Emmanuel Ligner, the CEO and president of Cytiva. During his interactions, Sandhu mentioned that India is seeking to encourage investments into the pharmaceutical and medical devices segment. He stated US companies have new opportunities for investment in India through a recently launched, a production linked incentive scheme.
In a statement Sandhu said "Discussed ways in which Pfizer could support healthcare efforts, including vaccines in India, and strengthen our pandemic response,” after his meeting with Bourla last week.
On Monday, Bourla had said that Pfizer was following with a deep concern the critical COVID-19 situation in India and his company was doing everything possible to provide support.
"Today we have announced we are mobilising the largest humanitarian relief effort in our company's history to help the people of India fight the vicious second wave of coronavirus that is currently ravaging the nation,” he said.
In order to provide access to sufficeint medicines, it announced to donate medicines worth USD 70 million to ensure that every COVID-19 patient in every public hospital across India can have access in the next 90 days free of charge.
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"This effort has the potential to impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients,” Bourla said.
In his meeting with Thermo Fisher CEO Marc Casper, Sandhu underlined their significant role in the fight against the pandemic, including expediting supplies to India of raw materials for Covishield vaccine and also for essential medicines such as remdesivir.
Massachusetts-based Thermo Fisher is a biopharma products company. It provides analytical instruments, laboratory equipment, chemicals and supplies to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions, and government agencies.
A meeting held with, Repp, CEO of Pall Life Sciences, the Indian ambassador put forth the needs to strengthen supply chains, for carping medicines such as remdesivir, and Novavax vaccine.
Pall biotech products are a life-saving drugs that range from Ebola vaccines to cancer-curing monoclonal antibodies. Its products have huge significance given the existing pandemic situation and are part of critical supply chains in the industry.
The firm has a massive network spreading across India, including offices in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Bangalore.
Sandhu in his call with Bernd Brust, the chairman and CEO of Antylia Scientific, appreciated their efforts of his firm for the timely supply of Covishield and Novavax vaccines.
Antylia Scientific is a worldwide peristaltic and single-use bioprocessing solution expert, with a diverse portfolio of life sciences and diagnostic products for the pharma, biopharma, healthcare and environmental markets.
The ambassador also had a call with Emmanuel Ligner, the CEO and president of Cytiva which is a worldwide provider of technologies and services that advance and accelerate the development and manufacture of therapeutics.
