Given the pace at which the Indian healthcare industry is making strides in recent years, it has complemented the growth of the pharmaceutical landscape. Despite being posed with challenges and opportunities, the Indian pharma industry has projected a robust growth trajectory and is emerging asone of the leading prospective marketson a global scale. Today, India is positioning itself as a key player and global hub, particularly in terms of its potential in the market of generic drugs manufacturing, exports, and research capabilities.
With all growth drivers and government regulations impacting the sector, the Indian government has laid out the Pharma Vision 2020 with the aim to help out the pharmaceutical industry have a seismic impact on global markets while adding significant value to the country’s economy.
Growth of Indian Pharma Industry
The Indian pharmaceutical industry is huge and complex, involving the manufacturing, marketing, research and development of drugs and medical-aided devices. The prominence of the Indian pharmaceutical market in the global strata has been exclusively rooted in the generics space. As per records, more than 80 percent of the globally used antiretroviral drugs are manufactured and supplied by the Indian pharmaceutical companies. (https://www.ibef.org/industry/pharmaceutical-india.aspx). Apart from that, the large pool of skilled workforce, export capabilities, and technological development have contributed favorably to the country’s stamina to ascend through the global pharma market with success.
To drive the pharma growth, the Government of India has taken a host of measures and policies aimed towards building healthcare centers, boosting healthcare accessibility, improving the quality of healthcare, and increasing the public expenditure on healthcare. All these government interventions are targeted to make the Indian pharmaceutical industry as one of the world’s leading destinations for drug manufacturing and development.
Pharma Vision 2020:An Attempt to Make India a Global Pharma Player
India has so-far achieved the milestone of becoming the world’s top supplier of low-cost generic medicines. The Pharma Vision 2020 is the government’s commitment to make India a global pharmaceutical player in the global market, and emerge as a leading medical destination for end-to-end drug discovery and innovation.
The current business model in the pharmaceutical industry is quite economically unsustainable and is operationally incapable of quickly producing innovative treatments as demanded by global markets. As a result, the industry needs to be revamped in a myriad ways to fundamentally change its operational structure to make the most of the future growth opportunities. The Pharma Vision 2020 is anticipated to aid the industry towards its path of future growth with some major changes.
As per the ‘Pharma Vision 2020’, the primary objective is to make India a drug discovery and innovation powerhouse in end-to-end drug manufacturing.
Owing to the increasing growth of non-communicable diseases, the healthcare industry is directed to shift its focus from primary treatment to mass prevention.Pharmaceutical companies need to be prepared to provide total healthcare packages for the industry.When it comes to research and development in pharma sector, the current linear phase research & development process will soon be superseded with modern in-life testing and live licensing model that will be executed in collaboration with healthcare providers and regulators.
The vision aims to replace the traditional blockbuster sales model with something innovative and sustainable. The supply chain function is also expected to have a revamp withthe new revenue-generating model as it becomes an integral part of the healthcare packages. Moreover, the supply chain will become an important function to enable healthcare accessibility to new channels. There will be a sophisticated direct-to-consumer distribution channel across the nation, diminishing the role of wholesalers.
As the pharmaceutical sector continues to evolve,there remains the need to bridge the gap between specialized quality drug manufacturing and keeping it affordable.To meet the demands and needs, India holds the potential of highly skilled workforce, expert scientists and medical engineers, who would steer the industry to achieve its projected target in the next few years. To that end, we, at Indore Institute’s School of Pharmacy, one among the top 10 pharmacy colleges in Indore, offer industry-oriented pharmacy education to produce knowledgeablepharma professionals for the emerging field of pharmaceutical medicine. The expertise of the faculty at IIP and its pedagogy imparts highly-effectual pharma knowledge that would enable competent professionals to cater to the future industry developments with adequate research capabilities.