The Pharmaceutical Exports Promotion Council (Pharmexcil), the apex body under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to promote and support Indian pharma exporters, is working on a project to promote exports of medicines to the top 10 export destinations of Indian drug companies.

The council is formulating a document covering various action plans for building brand for Indian pharma products and firms in these countries and will submit the request for project implementation to the Department of Pharmaceuticals in three to four months, said Smithesh Shah, chairman, Pharmexcil. The Council is expecting a large fund from the central government for the brand building exercise, he added.

“The top 10 countries contributes almost 50 per cent of exports business to Indian pharma companies. We have to focus our efforts to these nations to optimise business. We are in the process of formulating a model to explore the export potential to these countries, especially for brand building,” informed Shah. He also requested the Department of Pharmaceuticals to support the effort.

In the financial year 2008-09, the top 10 exports destinations – US, Russia, Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Brazil, Nigeria and Ukraine – contributed Rs 17,639.61 crore (US$ 3.84 billion) out of the total 39,537.66 (US$ 8.61 billion) pharma exports from India, according to Pharmexcil figures.

It is to be recalled that the regulated markets, especially United States (US) and Europe are opening up a huge opportunity worth billions of dollars market as a number of block buster patented products are expected to go off-patent in the next three years. Many of these products has already gone off-patent and a number of Indian generic majors has already filed applications for product approval or commenced marketing generic equivalents in these nations.

US stands as the largest export destination for Indian companies, and has contributed Rs 7,103.27 crore (US$ 1.54 billion) in the last year's exports business, shows Pharmexcil study. Russia, which has always attracted Indian pharma exporters, has imported Rs 1,519.20 crore (US$ 330.84 million) worth drug in the financial year 2008-09, while Germany imported Rs 1,441.87 crore (US$ 314 million) worth drugs from India at the same period. All the importers in the top 10 list, except Ukraine which has purchased Rs 687.22 crore (US$ 149.66 million), has imported drugs worth above Rs 1000 crore in the last financial year from India.