Developing on the pharma success story

The Indian pharmaceutical industry has always been at the forefront of serving the nation. From a net importer of drugs in the 1950s, today, India manufactures medicines for the world. It is the eighth largest pharma market in value terms globally and is expected to touch $55 billion. Pharma exports are expected to touch $30 billion by 2020. It is the fourth largest contributor to Indian exports and top ranks as the fastest growing export contributor amongst the top 10 export categories over the last five years.

The industry has generated employment for 2.5 million people — a 50 per cent increase in the last five years.

On the global front, Indian pharma companies have made a mark, with 60 per cent of the world’s vaccines coming from India. The largest number of FDA approved plants outside the US are from India and Indian pharma companies have more than 20 per cent of the prescription market share in the US.

‘Make in India’ and strengthening the innovation eco-system in India can have a far reaching impact. In the decades preceding the patent regime, India’s process innovation and indigenous manufacturing combined to bring in accessibility and affordability to therapies.

Over the last decade, in an ever-evolving global pharma landscape, India has shown the way with cost-competitiveness and has led the way with generics. Today with increasing competition, Indian pharma companies are moving into the speciality generics business.

The ability to innovate and building a robust innovation pipeline can also create differentiated strengths for India. A case in point was the access to the biologics like Adalimumab, the world’s largest selling therapy for inflammatory arthritis. While India has more than 25 per cent of the patient population, only a few thousands have had access to biologics.

The biologic, Adalimumab, unfortunately never came to India and millions of patients suffering from inflammatory arthritis did not have access to it. Nearly 40 million people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and Ankylosing Spondylitis had no access to the therapy.

With the launch of biosimilars like Exemptia which was the world’s first biosimilar of Adalimumab launched in 2014, people had access to this therapy; freedom from pain became a reality.

Manufacturing excellence, robust infrastructure, cost-competitiveness, trained human capital and innovation — these are the factors in India’s pharma success story so far. If we want to accelerate our growth, there are some concerns that we need to address as well.

There are nine critical areas that we need to focus on: We must continue to actively promote Brand India — in manufacturing and innovation (the Make-in-India campaign I think has done this very successfully); we need to work as per the global benchmarks of quality and improve the perceptions of quality and supply reliability especially in the US markets; we need to look at complex-to-manufacture generics and explore newer global markets; we must streamline the regulatory environment with clear and stable guidelines (this was an area of cost competitiveness for us and has got impacted because of the recent changes and ambiguity); we need to sustain the cost advantage; build next gen capabilities that will give us an edge; ensure supply security for API/intermediates; support innovation to increase access in the local market; build an innovation eco-system which can be a game-changer for India.

The big spectrum in healthcare is all about understanding, prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Given the right impetus and resources, there are enough and more ideas in India that can change and transform our world.

What would it mean for us to have a preventive vaccine that is able to wipe out the scourge of kala azar or leishmaniasis — a deadly parasitic disease that is endemic in the rural heartland of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal?

It means the gift of life to over 160 million people who are at high risk. How can we create an ecosystem that combines the strength of innovation and cost competitive, high quality manufacturing with speed and efficiency? This should be our focus.

The writer is chairman of Zydus Cadila Healthcare and president of Ficci

COMMENT NOW