The COVID-19 pandemic and the Indian pharmaceutical industry

Dr Abhishek Dadhich rounds up how the Indian pharmaceutical market has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and the steps the country’s government could take to overcome these setbacks.

The Indian pharmaceutical industry is the world’s third largest drug producer by volume and the country’s market manufactures 60 percent of vaccines globally. This constitutes 40 to 70 percent of supply to satisfy the World Health Organization’s (WHO) demand for Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis (DPT) and Bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG) vaccines and 90 percent of the global demand for the measles vaccine.

India supplies affordable and low-cost generic drugs to millions of people around the globe and operates more than 250 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and UK Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved plants. Furthermore, its active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) market is forecasted to attain a revenue of $6 billion by the end of 2020.

According to a report on the Indian pharmaceutical industry, the source of APIs is a crucial part of the pharma industry’s strategic plan to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of APIs for generic drug manufacturing across the globe are sourced from India, which also supplies approximately 30 percent of the generic APIs used in the US. However, Indian manufacturers rely heavily on APIs from China for the production of their medicine formulations, procuring around 70 percent from China, the top global producer and exporter of APIs by volume.