Policy Research into Mapping of Indian and Chinese Vendors for Supply of Biologicals to Indian Labs

Reagents play an important role in the life of lab. Without chemicals, antibodies, and reagents, it is impossible to undertake a good research project. Many researchers and institutes use different reagents in clinical, pharmacological, and observational studies using different purchase procedures. Different manufacturers across the world are developing transgenic products, recombinant proteins, and advanced techniques to supply biological products to various research labs. These chemicals are expensive, thus directly affecting the quality and standards of a research project. One of the major drawbacks is the use of reagents from different companies, which directly affects the results as the quality of these chemicals varies. The price of these chemicals may affect the procurement decision which is based on the applicable rules of a participating institution, quality, and service quality. That is why researchers prefer using chemicals, reagents, and kits of high quality which are relatively inexpensive. Thus, chemicals and reagents manufactured for experimental work are expected to be of good quality depending upon the type of the reagent. The most common grading standards for research reagents are reagent grade, laboratory grade, and technical grade, of which the reagent grade is of the highest and the technical grade is of the lowest quality.1 Sometimes suppliers provide chemicals of expiry date or reagents get expired, directly affecting the results of the experiments. Government e-market is a platform which facilitates the procurement of goods and services by government agencies and ministries. It is considered as e-market place that allows procurement with minimal human interface. Audit plays a major role in purchase management process that validates appropriate use of material to monitor quality, quantity, accuracy, and efficacy of the procurement process besides review of different contracts and contracting processes. Make in India initiative promotes the manufacturing of products related to research; however, there is no database pertaining to indigenous and international vendors based on which an endorsement for indigenous products can be promoted. The policy research framework by Department of Science and Technology (DST) can generate data which can be collected from various national labs funded by it. Data from Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS) database could also be used to obtain statistics regarding the import or export of such chemicals. (The chemicals have been categorized as “frequently, moderately, or rarely used”).

Through such policy research initiative, data can be used by the laboratories and institutions to understand not only the correlation between the price range of reagents and the relative outcome of the experiments but also the extent to which the expenditure is made to non-Indian and Indian biologicals, thus providing the necessary information about the need to facilitate indigenous manufacturing. This will also be useful for setting standards for utilization of chemicals by further preventing wastage of time, effort, and funds for such research projects.