|
Medical Device Industry Wants Centre To
Set Up Stand-In MTAB To Expedite Decision - Making Process For Sector
Industry wants the Centre to set up a standin medical device
technical advisory board (MTAB), until constituted officially by the Centre, as
proposed in the draft Bill of 2015. Highly placed sources from the sector
stressed that this is utmost essential under the current circumstances to ensure
proper representation of the demands of the stakeholders during the decision
making process.
Experts pointed out that proxy constitution of such a board
at least on a temporary basis can go a long way in addressing industry specific
issues and expedite the process of making appropriate sector specific provisions
for the industry as it should have been done for Bill 2015.
This demand comes in the wake of the release of the draft
notification of the Drugs and Cosmetics (Amendment) Bill 2015, which proposes
setting up of MTAB specifically for addressing the current issues of this
technical sector. While the industry is enthusiastic about this news, they
stressed that no good will come from such provision if it is not put into
action.
Association of Indian Medical Device Industry(AIMED) pointed
out that the proposed provision should in fact be put into action, to genuinely
discuss and deliberate over the representation of the stakeholders while
considering the changes to be made in the draft Bill. It is understood that the
industry is seriously concerned by highly misrepresented draft bill, which
hardly addresses the issues of the medical device sector in its current form.
In fact Rajiv Nath, forum coordinator of AIMED informed that
there are many provisions which have been either unceremoniously deleted or
added in the new revised bill which are against the interest of the industry.
“To ensure that the benefit of constituting such board actually trickles down to
help the stakeholders in effect, it is essential to set up a proxy MTAB at the
earliest. We hope to see experts from the industry especially from the ICMR,
department of technology to be actively involved in decision making process
while re drafting the Bill, to ensure fair representation of the demands of the
industry.”
He informed that ironically even for a technical sector like
medical devices, para - meters are set like in drugs, while experts from the
pharma industry draft provisions and laws for them than from medical device
sector. “This mentality has to change if the sector needs to grow and keep up
with the changing market dynamics and challenges. Thus to create an act that
suitably addresses the industry’s demands, at least a ghost MTAB as a task force
should be formed to ensure a judicious job rather than current approach of
acting on comments,” Nath added.
(Ref:
http://pharmabiz.com/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=86168&sid=1)
|
