New Jersey may still be America's medicine chest, but India is fast becoming the world's medicine plant. As big pharma turns to outsourcing to shed costs. India's homegrown pharma industry turns towards world's generic medicines, the subcontinent's drug output is growing fast with 13 percent growth expected this year.
Costs are lower and because of the country's history in pharma manufacturing, workers are well educated and highly skilled. Plus, Indian drugmakers have experience dealing with FDA and other Western regulators and despite some high-profile quality problems, India still has a better reputation for quality control than China does.
Some pharma experts predict that lots of the work drugmakers do between R&D and marketing will end up in India. "What I see happening now is manufacturing and even packaging and formulation are moving to India," Mr Jim Worrell of Pharma Services Network said. And Mr Sujay Shetty of Pricewaterhouse Coopers predicted that "Everything in the value-chain will move to different parts of the world that are cheaper," with India being a major beneficiary.
“The next frontier is original drug development and outsourced R&D. Discovery costs could be one-tenth of what drugmakers pay in Europe or the US,” said Mr Ajay Piramal, Founder of Piramal Healthcare.
© BioSpectrum Bureau
