The past decade has seen a new India, bustling with activity on several fronts. While the Indian IT industry exploded across the world in a dazzling flash, the Indian Pharmaceutical industry grew silently and steadily with rubbing shoulders with the top medicine-producing nations. There was a spate of acquisitions of the subsidiaries of MNC's in India. The larger Indian companies boldly went overseas and acquired companies in foreign lands.

The wheels of revolution rolled and the churning that took place did not leave any aspect of the Indian Pharma fraternity untouched. The regulators spruced up their act. The small scale and the medium sector started dreaming of copying the big daddies. The Pharma Engineering sector became more enterprising and venturesome. The mercenary share market acknowledged the developments in the pharma sector of India, reflected by the healthy trading that is taking place in pharma equity. The manufacturer, instead of exporting to only Africa and the smaller countries in the Far East, widened focus to the regulated markets in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan.

Biotechnology and clinical research also took root in a big way. With the greatest resource pool at its disposal, namely the human resource in numbers, India had the distinct advantage to exploit this resource to its fullest. The gene pool diversity attracted several research projects. Willingness to learn, acquire requisite skills and put in hard work has been keyed into the DNA strands of Indians.

There is a breed of manufacturers, who would be categorized as "B" class on the basis of their annual dollar consumption by analysts. But it is this "B" class manufacturer who is doing an A1 job of producing almost anything at the most reasonable prices. Reasonable prices by Indian standards but ridiculously or unbelievably low by the standards of the developed world. One hears occasional whimpers around the world that Indian products do not qualify per world standards. This can be disdainfully dismissed as "sour grapes" or "bellyache". Today, with globalization, harmonization, integration, validation, accreditation and a horde of other nations, the drug manufacturing industry of India is an open kitchen for anyone from anywhere in the world to come and inspect, applying whatever standards they wish to apply.

The number of company and product registrations overseas, that India boasts of today is a silent proof of the world-acceptability of Indian medicines. While the layman has been marveling at the growth taking place in China, the discerning have not missed the same pace of growth that is taking place in India.

The Indian manufacturer is ably supported by a dynamic machine manufacturing industry and one can see the most automated plants of Indian origin in operation alongside the less automated and even the semi-automatic technology. All these are harmonized under a common platform of GMP regulated under the newly revised Schedule M which is arguably more stringent than WHO standards in some areas. The medium scale is almost at par with the top ranking manufacturers in India and there is a bludgeoning class of medium scale manufacturers catering not only to the vast multitude of humanity but also to the bigger companies.

Thanks to some lucrative schemes released recently by the Government of India, even the small scale manufacturer has been encouraged to invest for upgradation of his manufacturing facility. The investment limit in capital equipment has been raised. There is a loan facility available through government-approved banks with a lucrative 5% subsidy. There are Special Economic Zones (SEZ's) spread across the country and many manufacturers have rushed to such places to avail of time-related tax holidays. Stricter vigilance of the regulatory authorities has resulted in closure of sub-standard manufacturing units or those units which were not keen on investment for upgradation. This has improved the image of the regulators not only in India, but overseas as well. The small and medium scale manufacturers have also got some tie-ups and JVs with companies across the world and this has pushed the majors to do even better so that they always manage to keep their noses ahead of the upstarts.

India today is a land of opportunity. As many of the gainfully employed expatriates would testify, its arms are open in invitation to all and sundry who wish to contribute and share the Indian pie

(The author is a consultant for Small and Medium Enterprises )