IN DULL TIMES, THE INDIAN PHARMA SECTOR LOOKS BRIGHT

Since the time COVID19 took the entire world by storm, what is the one thing every person is seeking? The fairly obvious answer is a vaccine. While vaccines to battle the pathogen are sometime away, the pharma sector has kicked into action. And the prospects for the sector looks rather bright in the medium term.

In the past four weeks, the Food And Drug Administration (FDA), an agency of the United States (US) Department of Health and Human Services, has approved many drugs for dozens of Indian pharmacy companies. Since Indian pharmaceutical companies provide for about 40% of generic drugs in the US and about 25% of generic drugs in the United Kingdom, pharmacy exports are expected to increase by more than 50% in the near future.

What this means in actual figures: currently, Indian pharmacy exports stand at about 13 billion dollars and are expected to hit 20 billion dollars by the end of this year. In the next five years, if they keep up the upward trend, they would be valued at a 100 billion dollars. This will certainly boost India’s commitment to be a global leader in end-to-end drug discovery and development, which was a part of the Government’s ‘Pharma Vision 2020’.

The icing on the cake for pharmacy exports is that the US dollar is at an all-time high. If there is one sector to watch out for, it would be the Indian pharmaceutical and drug manufacturing sector.