The report maintained that the rise in gross domestic product, increasing population and the affluent middle class will largely contribute to the rise in Indian drug sales. However, India’s share in the global pharmaceutical market will rise only marginally to 2%.
The report also predicts that China will continue to overshadow India’s pharma growth because of its huge volume of sales and India’s relative backwardness in pharmaceutical production. Korea, with pharmaceutical sales of E14 billion, also outstrips India by a fair margin.
However factors like capital protection, strict patent laws, low wage costs, qualified employees, booming domestic demand may drive the western drug manufacturers towards investment in India. Also, low manufacturing costs may act as incentives to attract foreign investments in the Indian pharmaceutical sector. The expansion in production facilities coupled with the cost advantage may boost the Indian pharma industry in the long run.