Indian pharmaceutical companies must at both domestic and global level. In an industry that is extremely competitive – with more than 20,000 pharmaceutical companies –these were the two main driving forces defining the future landscape of the Indian pharmaceutical industry, said the delegates at the Cambridge Consultants' pharma workshop held in Mumbai recently.

The Cambridge Consultants workshop, attended by a cross–section of senior personnel from a variety of functions within leading Indian and multinational companies, explored the question of whether India would become one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical countries by 2030. Recent reports suggest India's domestic pharmaceutical sector will grow to $55 billion by 2020. As a significant exporter of high-quality generic drugs, India is expected to see the value of its drug exports double to $25 billion by the end of 2014, according to the country’s Minister of Health.

Delegate feedback revealed the Indian pharmaceutical industry still has significant growth opportunities, and major local companies could have the potential to compete with multinational pharmaceutical companies. Amongst them, the greatest impact in world markets will come from those Indian pharmaceutical companies which adopt technology innovations to differentiate their products and make them more competitive both domestically and globally.

This trend for differentiation is particularly important as Indian pharmaceutical companies have fewer new generic opportunities. This is because the number of new chemical entity (NCE) filings to the US Food and Drug Administration has declined over recent years and the number of innovator drug patents reaching their expiry date has peaked. Similarly, at a global level there are more generic pharmaceutical developers from other emerging nations, including China, which will offer low-cost competition for India, as well as the ongoing global threat of counterfeit drugs.

Dr Cyrus Karkaria, president of the biotech division at Lupin Pharma India, said: “The Indian pharmaceutical market is really at a very exciting yet challenging point, where it can become an even greater contributor to the Indian economy. Indian pharma companies must remain competitive and look to innovate and adopt technologies that can complement and accelerate the uptake of drugs for better health management.”

Andrew Barrett, director of medical technology in India at Cambridge Consultants, said: “In order to drive faster growth, and capitalise on their existing success, Indian pharmaceutical companies must now aim to create true added-value offerings with ‘super-generics’, which can deliver additional benefit to patients. Innovation and technology are key, and the required investments can be recouped because medical products have long lifecycles. Technology has a great role in drug delivery to extend these lifecycles, add value and, importantly, allow product differentiation in a crowded market space.”

With worldwide engineering teams based in Cambridge, UK, and Boston in the USA, Cambridge Consultants designs and develops innovative medical devices and technologies for the world’s leading companies and for innovative start-ups. The company works with leading pharmaceutical companies to deliver market-leading inhalation and injection devices, clinical diagnostics and life science instrumentation, surgical and interventional devices, wireless medical technology and pharmaceutical business consulting.