Economic Times concludes the Pharma & Life Sciences Congress 2017

With the Indian Pharmaceuticals market growing ever larger, The Economic Times saw the need to cultivate a platform for researchers, pharmaceuticals industries, healthcare professionals and various stakeholders to discuss the latest advances in the space. The Economic Times Pharma & Life Sciences Congress 2017, held today at The Taj Vivanta, Mumbai, saw prominent industry experts deliberate on the 'Future of Pharma & Life sciences.'

The event convened with opening remarks from Dr. Maruthi Viswanathan, Chief Executive Officer, Rx Prism and later a keynote address delivered by Mr. Ranjit Shahni, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Novartis. In the keynote address, Mr. Shahani highlighted the key trends, opportunities, challenges that the Indian industry faces, stating, "Demographic trends like increase in population, average life expectancy are putting the healthcare system under pressure."

Setting the tone for the day, Mr. Deepak Lamba, President - Times Strategic Solutions, said, "The Indian Pharma industry is on the threshold of becoming a major global market by 2020. We at ET believe no global pharmaceutical company can afford to ignore India and its growth. We thus wanted to provide a platform to sustain this growth and bring more positive changes through a talented pool of Pharma experts."


Dilip G Shah, Secretary General, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, expanded further, saying, "The future would be less and less predictable and the disruption would come at a faster rate that we have witnessed and this disruption would come from completely unknown parties, like digital or medical science and my discussion with the other industry shows that we are not prepared for future." To battle these disruptions, Annaswamy Vaidheesh, Vice President, South Asia & Managing Director, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceutical, suggested setting up think tanks within the country.