Economic Survey 2021: India has potential to become ‘pharmacy of the world’

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India has the potential to become the ‘pharmacy of the world’, the government's annual pre-budget Economic Survey said on January 29.

During April-October 2020, India’s pharmaceutical exports of $ 11.1 billion witnessed a growth of 18 percent against $ 9.4 billion in the year-ago period.

"Drug formulations, biologicals have consistently registered positive growth and the highest increase in absolute terms in recent months. This led to a rise in its share to 7.1 percent in April-November 2020 from 5 percent in April-November 2019, making it the second-largest exported commodity among the top 10 export commodities. This shows that India has the potential to be the ‘pharmacy of the world’", the survey said. 

The pandemic exposed the excessive dependence of the Indian pharmaceutical industry on China for sourcing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and Key Starting Materials, the survey said.

India's pharmaceutical industry is valued at $41 billion and is expected to grow to  $65 billion by 2024 and $ 120-130 billion by 2030. 

The global pharmaceutical market is set to exceed $ 1.5 trillion by 2023, the pre-budget survey noted. 

It also said that the pharmaceutical industry in the country needs greater research and development (R&D) expenditure to move up the value chain from generics to Novel Chemical Entities (NCEs), the survey said.

The availability of a significant raw material base and skilled workforce have enabled India to emerge as an international manufacturing hub for generic medicines. Further, India is the only country with the largest number of USFDA compliant pharma plants (more than 262 including APIs) outside of the US.