India is currently recognized as the global pharmacy of the developing world and has the distinction of providing quality healthcare at affordable costs. The country has achieved the distinction world over for its cost-competitive manufacturing capabilities, said Smithesh Shah, chairman, Pharmexcil.

While addressing a gathering of pharma industry leaders in Hyderabad recently, he said the Indian pharmaceutical industry in the last few years has shown tremendous progress in terms of infrastructure development, technology base creation and a wide range of production covering in almost all therapeutic categories and dosage forms. The sophisticated chemistry capabilities, lateral thinking abilities in developing non-infringing processes, disciplined approach to adhere to stringent guidelines, dedication for manufacturing excellence, etc., make India a favourable destination to source or outsource various components of value chain.

India is not only an API and formulation manufacturing centre but also poised to become a manufacturing hub for pharmaceutical products for the world, an emerging hub for contract research, bio-technology, clinical trials and clinical data management. The outsourcing to India by large global innovator companies spans API development, API manufacturing, formulations development, formulations manufacturing, and CROs. Large Indian companies are already significant players in this space. The outsourcing market is growing rapidly and India is well positioned to capture a significant portion of this growth, he said.
 
As per the latest monthly statistics released by Director General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics (DGCIS), India’s Exports of Drugs, Pharmaceuticals & Fine Chemicals for the period April 2009 to March 2010 stood at Rs. 42,091.90 crore, recording a growth of 4.13 per cent over the corresponding period of previous year. At an export of approximately US$ 9 billion and a domestic market of US$ 10 billion, the Indian industry totals nearly US$ 20 billion. This is under 3 per cent of the global pharma market. In exports, Indian formulations comprise 58 per cent followed by bulk drugs 41 per cent and herbals at one per cent.

According to the chairman, India has at present around 3,000 registered pharmaceutical exporters of which around 1,500 are active exporters. Maharashtra leads in pharmaceutical exports with a share of 38 per cent followed by Andhra Pradesh at 23 per cent and Haryana comes third. In the infrastructure side, India has more than 175 US FDA plants. India also leads in the number of DMFs and ANDA approvals.  As far as ANDA are concerned, the US FDA has approved 4723 ANDAs since 1995, out of which 600 or 12.7 per cent are from Indian companies.

It is interesting to note that India’s three most valued lifesciences companies – Sun Pharma, Cipla, and Dr Reddy’s Lab are comparable to many large generic companies like Mylan, Watson and King.