The Pharmaceutical export promotion council of India (Pharmexcil), headquartered in Hyderabad has been playing a vital role in boosting pharmaceutical exports to the global markets.
During the past 10 years of its inception the Council has organised various promotional activities, such as seminars, exhibitions, national and international events to promote brand India pharma to the world.
As part of its endeavour to promote the high quality and affordable generic medicines to the world markets, the council has been striving hard and constantly collaborating with the national and international governments, regulatory bodies, associations and the industry constantly. The council’s role is regarded significant in helping the government in vital policy decisions relating to the pharmaceutical industry.
In addition to this, the council’s role in promoting Brand India Pharma in Japan, China and other untouched parts of south East Asian countries is regarded as vital. The successful launch of IPHEX, the Indian edition of international pharmaceutical event has added momentum to the council’s efforts to promote Indian pharma exports to the globe.
Under the dynamic leadership of Dr. P.V. Appaji, Director General of Pharmexcil, the council has achieved many successes and is continuously working in enhancing the Indian exports to the unreached corners of the globe.
At present the Indian pharmaceutical exports though have slowed a bit, the future looks more bright as the entire globe is looking at India and its transforming industry. For the financial year 2015 India’s pharma exports have grown at 2.2 per cent to $15.2 billion. According to Dr Appaji, the main reason for the slowdown in the growth is due to depreciation of Russian rouble, coupled with the Ukraine situation.
In 2014 , the Indian exports accounted to $ 14.9 billion. Looking optimistic, Appaji feels that though the next two years is likely to witness a slow down, after that the industry will bounce back to its original 14-15 per cent growth and by 2020 the Indian exports are expected to cross more than $ 25 billion. "In rupee terms, the exports were at Rs 96,000 crore during 2014-15. We are yet to receive the figure in dollar terms it will be about 2.2 per cent growth," he said.
Appaji said the growth in US was around 13 per cent last year despite various regulatory issues compared with 18 percent earlier. "Also, some of our Indian companies have opened their 100 per cent subsidiaries in other countries in which case the export of goods is shown as stock transfer," Appaji added.
He saw the contribution of Russia and other CSI countries to the overall Indian pharma exports at about six per cent in terms of value. However, there is a negative growth in the region last year. Appaji said that in a bid to penetrate Japanese generic drug market, which is said to be the second-largest drug market after the US, the Indian government is trying to convince Japanese drug makers about the capabilities of Indian pharma industry through 'Brand India' campaign.
To promote the Indian APIs to the tough markets of china and Japan, Pharmexcil in co-ordination with the central government is interacting with Chinese and Japanese regulators and their associations to iron out out the issues and in the coming days it is expected that India will export more APIs and generics to these highly regulated markets in Asia. “We have already established brand in USA and Europe, now our focus is in the Asian and untouched parts of European markets. As the regulatory environment is constantly changing and more competitors are emerging from the developing countries it has slowed down India’s growth. But the future is bright. With Indian enhancing its capabilities in new drug development and capturing more generic markets, it is expected the country will scale new peaks in the coming days,” opined Appaji.
Among its major achievements, Pharmexcil over the years have signed many memorandums of understandings with various countries. Major among these are MoUs with Chinese Association for Pharmaceuticals Agents at Taiwan, India Colombia Chamber of Commerce & Industry at Bogota, Ghana National Chamber of Commerce & Industry at Accra, Empower School of Health at New Delhi, Association of Generic Medicines of Nepal at Kathmandu, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria & Association of Industrial Pharmacist Nigeria at Lagos and China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products at Beijing.
Major focus of all these MoUs is to extend further collaborations of Indian pharma industry with these global players to further improve the exports and help ease problems and issues relating to trade with Indian industry.
The council has also been actively participating at global arenas at various events like CPhIs, BioAsia, Arab Expo, IPHEX etc and the council has also been supporting the SMEs in the country to develop their network with the other countries and their pharma industry.
Overall the council's major activities and function includes organizing trade delegations, conducting buyer-seller meetings at abroad, organizing reverse buyer-seller meetings in India, assisting members to get their MDA/MAI claims refunded from Govt. of India, issue of Certificate of Origin, organizing periodical seminars/interactive meetings on exports related issues, make suggestions to Govt. of India on policy issues relating to pharma exports, make representations to Govt. of India and other agencies in India and abroad to get amicable solutions for the common problems of the industry.
This apart the council is also playing a significant role in organizing seminars, workshops and awareness programs related to IPR & regulatory matters through its IPR & Regulatory Centre.