India’s pharma exports will likely touch $22 billion this fiscal, up from last year’s $19.14 billion, according to Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil). Exports grew by 13 per cent at $6.72 billion in the first four months of the fiscal and in July alone, growth stood at a robust 21.7 per cent. “Going at this pace, the year may end with a higher export at about $21-22 billion during FY20,” said R Uday Bhaskar, DG, Pharmexcil.
Speaking to media in Hyderabad on Friday, Bhaskar said there was growth despite the economy being on a slippery slope, while policy actions by the Chinese government aligned favourably for Indian exporters besides the price stabilization in the US market. According to him, India currently imports active pharmaceutical ingredients and other chemicals worth $2.5 billion from China, and exports drugs worth $230 million. During the first quarter, exports to China and Japan shot up by 37 and 32 per cent respectively.
“To sustain the growth, we need to penetrate China and Japan markets in a big way and reduced dependency on active pharma ingredients and intermediates imports from China,” he further said. Besides, exporters also recovered reasonably well from the price erosion and cartelisation in the US market, where export growth is back in black recording 13.72 per cent growth in FY19 against growth of 8 per cent in FY18. According to Bhaskar, generic pharma exports grew nearly 2.8 times faster than the global generic market. “Hence, we expect the exports to touch $22 billion this fiscal. The prices in the US market are now stabilised and even when there was price erosion, our export volumes were growing. That is why the US market has revived,” he said.
Bhaskar said that better price stability in the US and the general increase in volumes are propping up overseas sales. “If you see the global economy, every country is trying to cut costs in healthcare...No country in the world other than India, which offers quality drugs at affordable prices, which peps up demand,” he said.
[Courtesy: http://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2019/sep/14/indian-pharma-exports-may-touch-22-billion-2033449.html