Vaccines, Biologics: Indian Pharma's New Temptations

API, diagnostics, New Chemical Entity — Covid has thrown up new opportunities, and domestic pharma biggies are charging in with renewed focus.

- Gina Krishnan

$44 billion Current size of the Indian pharma industry

$130 billion Targeted annual revenue by 2030

THERE COMES A TIME when work becomes a mission — more than money, power or fame. For Indian pharma, the moment came in 2020, when the pandemic hit the country. As the world closely watched the actions of a nation accounting for a little over a sixth of humanity in anticipation, the pharmaceutical industry put its best foot forward. Vaccine companies, drug makers and suppliers took on an unknown disease and delivered to an anxious nation — and the world — new business models and new ways of drug development and research.

“2021 has been pharma’s Y2K,”says Sudarshan Jain, secretary-general, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance [IPA]. New de-cluttered strategies picked up pace as the pandemic became the defining moment for the $44-billion domestic pharma industry, which is targetting $130 billion in annual revenues by 2030.

Antecedents

In the early 2000s, Indian pharmaceutical companies rode the tailwind of Para IV filings [before the patent on a drug expires, a generic company can file an application showing their version does not infringe the innovator’s patent] and earned in dollars like never before. Two decades later, the industry is seeing a different kind of traction, having learnt to navigate the business and challenges of innovation.