The International Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association (IGBA), representing global manufacturers of generic and biosimilar medicines, announced that Sudarshan Jain, Secretary-General of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), is taking over the position of IGBA Chair for 2021 from Hanan Sboul, Secretary-General of the Jordanian Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers.

Jain is a well-known veteran in the pharma industry and brings with him decades of strong leadership and drug policy experience.

“I am very pleased and proud to take over the Chairmanship of IGBA and look forward to ensuring that IGBA continues to expand its outreach relevant to its mission, priorities and operations”, commented Jain.

He added, “Increased and sustainable patient access to high-quality medicines worldwide, as well as balanced intellectual property systems remain our key priorities. More than ever, we need to transform the lessons learned from the current pandemic and public health crises into resilience of the supply-chain of active pharma ingredients (APIs) and finished products (FPs) and ensure that the needs of patients and their access to affordable, safe, and effective generic and biosimilar medicines are taken into account in trade agreements.”

In 2021, IGBA also welcomed the Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (BAPI) as the first national association joining IGBA as an Observer. “The decision to create an Observer category reflects the IGBA efforts to be more inclusive, to contribute to the 2014 World Health Assembly Resolution (WHA) on Regulatory system strengthening for medical products and the WHA Resolution on Access to biotherapeutic products including similar biotherapeutic products and ensuring their quality, safety and efficacy as well as to support regulatory convergence and reliance”, commented Suzette Kox, Secretary-General, IGBA.

Hanan Sboul, the outgoing Chair of IGBA said, “Despite these very demanding times, tangible progress was made under the WHO-IGBA Memorandum of Understanding, aiming at increasing access to affordable quality treatment. IGBA continued supporting with an increasing number of experts the scientific harmonization process within the International Council for Harmonization (ICH), completed a study with IQVIA on the impact of free trade agreements (FTAs) on generic and biosimilar markets, authored a peer-reviewed scientific paper on tailored clinical biosimilar development and launched its first-ever Global Biosimilars Week social media campaign.”