The pharmaceutical industry worldwide is witnessing a sea-change with increasing importance and dominance of the developing countries in terms of market-size and manufacturing.  When the industry is growing at 15-20 per cent in India over the years, the industry growth rate in China is also around the same rate.

One of the suggestive indications of pharmaceutical industry growth in two countries can be estimated by looking at the participation at the United Business Media (UBM) India's fifth edition of CPhI, P-MEC, BioPh and ICSE India-South Asia's biggest pharmaceutical event being held in Mumbai from 1 to 3 December, 2010. The event is in partnership with Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil). Around 92 per cent participation in global pharma event of CPhI India is from these two countries. 

According to the event organisers, about 52 per cent participants in the event are from India and 40 per cent from China. It is noteworthy that the number of participants from other countries has not gone down but the numbers from China have gone up relatively. Last year the same event witnessed 66 per cent participants from Asia, 20 per cent from Europe, 7 per cent from Africa, 6 per cent from North America and 1 per cent from South America. Similarly, in 2008, out of 537 participants, 181 were from other countries.

India is on the leading edge of the pharma market, with the domestic growth at a healthy 13 per cent in 2009 and a spectacular growth of over 25 per cent in exports, much higher than the global average. This growth is expected to continue its upward trend as the world increasingly depends on Indian generics and rightly so, IDMA's theme for the year has been 'India - The Generics Pharma Capital of the World'. In line with this development also is the Indian pharmaceutical machinery and equipment market, which is growing at an average of 15-20 per cent per year.

On the other hand, according to Srikant Kumar Jena, Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers, the Indian pharmaceutical industry is now over US$ 20 billion. India ranks fourteenth in terms of value. The country ranks fourth in terms of generic production and seventeenth in terms of export value of bulk actives and dosage forms. By 2015, India is expected to rank among the top 10 global pharmaceutical markets. The industry is typically growing at around 1.5-1.6 times the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth." 

According to a recent report on pharmaceutical industry by PricewaterhouseCooper, 'China arguably ranks as the best pharmaceutical outsourcing destination among all Asian territories (China, India, Singapore, Japan, Australia, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines) when looking at the multiple factors of cost, risks and market opportunities. Significant savings in labour and laboratory set-up costs, as well as strong government incentive programmes such as tax holidays, tax cuts and value-added tax (VAT) exemptions (for a more detailed overview of China's current tax situation. While most experts estimate that clinical trials costs in China are roughly 30 per cent of costs in Western countries, conservative estimates will also include hidden costs such as geographic distance, communication, quality assurance and management, which suggest cost savings of around 50 per cent.'