Producing for export markets is emerging as a significant activity for Indian pharmaceutical industry today and in the years to come. Almost one-third of India's pharmaceutical production is being exported to over 100 countries for some years now. In 2001-02, India exported Rs 9,778 crore of drugs and pharmaceuticals and during the current year, exports are set to cross Rs 12,000-crore mark. Among the large pharma corporates, more than half a dozen companies export 50 percent or more of their total annual production. Ranbaxy Labs leads all of them in value with its exports crossing 60 percent of the production. The company exported Rs.1288.5 crore of pharmaceuticals out of its total sales of Rs 2,071.7 crore during nine months of 2002. Dr Reddy's Labs, Cipla, Wockhardt, Lupin, Cadila Healthcare, Sun Pharma, Morepen, Aurobindo, J B Chemicals and Shasun Chemicals, are some of the others who are set on expanding their export business on a big scale. A notable part of this export surge is that a substantial part of Indian exports today is formulations, mostly generics, and not bulk drugs as it used to be some years ago. In other words, India is no more just a raw material exporter to the world pharma industry.
Considering the current trend in the export growth and the recognition some of the Indian pharma companies are getting in the international market for quality, there is a need for evolving a national export strategy for this sector. The formation of a separate export promotion council for drugs and pharmaceuticals is an important step in this direction. The initiative took by major pharma exporters to come forward to contribute to the Rs 3 crore corpus, instead of depending on government funds, is laudable. What now remains is only a formal announcement of the formation of Pharmexcil. That has to be expected in a few weeks from now and the functioning of Pharmexcil should commence at least by April. Needless to say that those who are going to run Pharmexcil have a huge responsibility to project Indian pharmaceutical industry in the right perspective. Probably, Indian pharmaceutical industry has not been getting adequate attention and encouragement in the past from CHEMEXCIL despite remarkable growth in pharma exports over the years. Now with the formation of an exclusive export promotion council, every individual exporter has a role to play in enhancing the export growth and reputation of the Indian pharma industry. Large pharma companies have already established themselves as reliable suppliers of quality products in developed and developing markets. But, that is not the case with many of the medium and small scale exporters. There has been a number of complaints about the quality and delayed shipments of pharmaceuticals in the past. The first and most important task, therefore, for the Pharmexcil will be to address these issues. There are exporters who misuse the provisions of the EXIM policy and other rules. These bad elements within the exporting community have to be identified and kept out of the Council.