Indian pharma industry witnesses steadfast growth

Speaking at the India Investment Show 2008, organized by myiris.com, on Jun. 07, 2008, Himanshu Naik of Elder Pharmaceuticals began the session `Pharma Business: Looking for Drivers` saying, Indian pharmaceutical market is very challenging, and has been growing in the past couple of years, showing a double digit growth. As per forecast it will be an important consumer and producer in the global pharmaceutical industry.

He further added, pharmaceutical industry has been growing in India, primarily on account of factors such as better healthcare infrastructure, growth of population, use of internet, better reach of medicine, lifestyle disorder, leading to high medical budget of families. Also companies are now reaching the rural polulation and also helping the industry to grow. Foreign companies are bringing new products in to India and entering into tie-ups with Indian companies.

As far as the global scenario is concerned, `generic` and India go hand in hand. Whenever, there is talk of generic products the first thing that comes to mind is that of India, because India is one of the leading countries in producing generic products. Indian industry thrives on generic products, he added.

Ashok Shinkar of Wanbury and Sandeep Bumbolkar of Indoco Remedies in the session attributed growth of Indian pharmaceutical industry to factors like increasing life expectancy, higher population with chronic diseases, E7 growth, and more emphasis on prevention than cure.

Elaborating on the above, Ashok Shinkar, by virtue of statistics, concluded saying life expectancy has improved over 15 years, over the past 3 decades and is steadily improving. The increasing burden of chronic disease is putting pressure on healthcare cost. Also ageing population is largest contributor of healthcare cost.

June 16, 2008