70th IPC to add healthcare and diagnostic to its spectrum

This year’s IPC is going to have nearly 100 speakers and they are the cream of the industry. Few of them will be international speakers

With just two months left for the 70th Indian Pharmaceutical Congress (IPC), preparations for the event are in full swing, informed committee members of IPC in its third Indian Pharmaceutical Congress Association (IPCA) meeting held on 20th October at Sun Pharma House, Mumbai.

The meeting commenced with a welcome address by Dr TV Narayana, General Secretary, IPCAwherein he thanked all the members who had joined the meeting. He especially thanked Dilip Shanghvi, President IPCA and Founder, Sun Pharma. The meeting proceeded with a remark raised by Shanghvi that apart from pharma and academia, there is a greater need for the machinery manufacturers’ fraternity to be part of this edition of the IPC.

BR Sikri, LOC’s Chairman informed that this year’s IPC is also focussing on the healthcare sector. Dr Naresh Trehan, Chairman and Managing Director of Medanta – The Medicity, will be the special invitee on December 21 to launch the healthcare chapter at the 70th IPC. The event will also witness attendance by leading experts of the pharma, healthcare and diagnostics segments. He also informed that a Bhoomi Poojan will be held at the venue, Amity University campus, to initiate IPC work in November.

Giving an update on the work initiated by him and Atul Nasa, Organising Secretary, with support with other LOC members, Sikri informed that they have appealed to different industry associations like IDMA, HDMA, FOPE, BDMA, CIPI and Pharmexcil to extend their support and have received positive responses from them. He also gave an update on the registrations received so far. He revealed that the committee has received 2100 scientific abstracts, of which 1500 have been already evaluated.

Sikri also mentioned that there will be a session on success stories of stalwarts such as Pankaj Patel, Chairman Zydus Cadila; Dilip Shanghvi, Founder, Sun Pharma; RC Juneja, Chairman, Mankind Pharma; J Jayaseelan, National Vice President, IPA (Industry Division); Partha Sarathi Reddy, Chairman, Hetero; and Rajeev Nannapaneni, Director, Natco.

Nasa highlighted key activities related to the event and novel features of the Congress. He divulged that different topics related to training, placement and entrepreneurship, health startup hackathon, women empowerment, international speakers and delegation, industry – academia discussions, government regulators industry discussions etc will be addressed at. He also informed that a special committee has been constituted under LOC to manage industry relations.

Besides these initiatives, under the guidance of Ravi Uday Bhaskar, Director General, Pharmexcil a symposium on ‘Indian Pharma Exports – Regulatory Challenges’ will also be held. It will have key speakers from the industry as well as Indian regulators. The LOC is also trying to get Chinese regulators to attend the event, which would be a first-of-its-kind endeavour. He also informed that gala cultural evenings, to be held on December 21-22, 2018, will also be a part of IPC this year.

Informing about scientific programmes, Dr Arun Garg, Chairperson, Scientific Committee briefed about the progress on four different tracks and speakers. He also asked the LOC members for suggestions on speakers. Taking over from Garg, Dr Ramkrishnan, Convenor, Scientific Committee provided detailed reports of each track along with speaker confirmation updates. He also informed about the in-principle confirmation of Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson and Managing Director, Biocon for the Women Empowerment session.

It was also revealed that this year’s IPC is going to be different from previous editions, now the ratio is 60 per cent academia and 40 per cent industry. And to add more significant value to the IPC brand, the present LOC committee members are working aggressively on expanding the IPC spectrum and have added healthcare and diagnostic sectors to it.
The aim of increasing industry focus in this year’s edition is to deliberate on key issues of the industry on the IPC platform, wherein all stakeholders of pharma fraternity come together and discuss challenges and solutions. Besides this, it is the only platform where students get the opportunity to interact with industry stakeholders directly and understand the industry’s requirements.

Moreover, this year’s IPC is going to have nearly 100 speakers and they are the cream of the industry. A few of them will be international speakers. In a unique initiative, the present LOC of IPC has constituted 28 different committees and each committee comprises seven to eight members. In his vote of thanks Garg thanked everyone for taking time and sharing valuable suggestions.

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