India Serving as ‘Pharmacy of the world’
Today, India is one of the top economies in the pharma sector. India is ranked third globally in terms of production by volume. The current market size of the domestic pharma industry is around $50 billion. Almost 60% of the world vaccines come from Indian pharma companies. The exports have also witnessed a significant growth of around 103% in the past 8 years from Rs 90,416 crore to Rs 1,83,423 crore in 2021-2022. This achievement which was done by the increase in exports was Pharma sector’s best performance in export ever and was considered as a milestone with exports increasing by US$ 10 billion in 8 years. Further the pharma exports touched Rs 1.8 trillion in the year 2022.
The pandemic made every sector go red but despite the global disruptions it caused, the pharma sector managed to make its way out and the exports sustained a positive growth achieving a target of $24.4 billion with a year on year growth of 18%. India’s share in the pharmaceutical sector in global exports is 5.92%. Top five export partners of India are the US, UK, South Africa, Russia and Nigeria.
The government of India has proposed a US$2 billion incentive package to promote Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative by focusing on R&D. As part of the Make in India effort, the Department of Pharmaceuticals declared in 2019 that medications for domestic use and export must contain 75% and 10% local APIs, and material billing should be submitted for verification.
Government of India has also launched a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for Pharmaceuticals with provision for disbursal of INR 15,000 crore government incentives, which have started from the year 2020-21.This initiativeis expected to continue till 2028-29 to reduce dependency on other countries andbenefit local manufacturers.
