| | With the shift to a strong patent law, Indian pharmaceutical companies are rapidly shifting their focus to the generics market of the developed world. But even as India has become a net exporter of pharmaceuticals, import dependence on active pharmaceutical ingredients
has steadily increased over the last 10 years. As far as the Indian affiliates of the multinational
pharmaceutical companies are concerned, their shares of both the active pharmaceutical ingredients and formulations are declining and their “investment” preferences have shifted towards financial securities. A process of consolidation through mergers and acquisitions has been underway, which apart from increasing market concentration, has been a key element of firm strategy to tap business opportunities along the value chain in the domestic as well as the overseas markets. In the field of R&D, with no Indian pharmaceutical company being equipped to take a potential drug from the investigational stage to the stage of final market launch, collaboration with multinational corporations is the norm, resulting in
biases in the choice of therapeutic areas towards lifestyle-related diseases.
|
