Telangana sees rise in number of USFDA approved units

In the financial year 2022-23, 258 USFDA units were approved in Telangana, much higher than the 199 units in New Jersey.

Hyderabad: Telangana is not only home for a large number of US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) approved units, but the number of such units in the State is steadily increasing with each year, thanks to the infrastructure available in the State.

In the financial year 2022-23, 258 USFDA units were approved in Telangana, much higher than the 199 units in New Jersey. Since the last few years, Telangana has emerged as the single largest province to house more USFDA approved units outside the United States.

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This year, since April till date, 205 units have been approved in Telangana against 179 in New Jersey. “All this is being achieved due to the tailor-made infrastructure developed by the State government,” a senior official from the Industries department said.

Hyderabad, Bengaluru and the Mumbai-Pune cluster were the clinical research clusters in India, and Hyderabad has emerged as the preferred destination, he pointed out.

The vibrant innovation cluster at Genome Valley is home to multinational CROs and CMOs, including Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories, Sai Life Sciences, Syngene, SYNEOS Health (erstwhile INC Research and inVentiv Health), Parexel International, VIMTA and many more. The Telangana government has been focusing on the life sciences sector and plans have been laid to double the size of the life sciences sector in the State from the current $80 billion to $250 billion in size in five years.

There were about four lakh people working in the life sciences and allied sectors and this would also double to 8 lakh in the coming five years in the State, as per the plans, officials said.

Apart from the robust infrastructure, many companies were setting high targets to expand their markets globally with a special focus on US market. Under these grand plans, companies were expanding their unit operations in Telangana, said Pharmexcil Director General Udaya Bhaskar.

In fact, after the Covid pandemic, the USFDA has cut down its inspections of units significantly. As a result, many applications were yet to be cleared, he said, adding in the days to come, more USFDA units would be operational in Telangana and other States in the country.