It is well established that India is now a major player the international pharma industry. Currently, the total pharma market in India is estimated at around $21bn, but this has more than doubled in the last ten years, and many feel it will do so again in the next decade.
But the story doesn’t end here. India has also been emerging as a major destination for outsourcing of R&D projects and Clinical trials, in order to cut costs and also utilize the vast pool of trained manpower in the country.
Global R&D expenditure over the past few years (Source: Kalorama Information) has been consistently increasing.
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The CMR International R&D Factbook revealed “the number of new molecules in development by generic companies, particularly in India, reflects a strong inclination to invest in R&D,” and “the number of patent challenges in the region indicates an increasingly aggressive approach to securing market share,” according to a Thomson Reuters press release. “Patent challenges raised by Indian companies, for example, increased 60 percent from 2006 to 2009, underlining the shifting business model in the region,” the release states.
With closure and even divest of discovery sites in US and Europe in 2010, Big Pharma is under tremendous pressure to reduce costs and become leaner. Pharmaceutical companies are likely to continue to increase the percentage of their R&D work that is outsourced in Asia. This trend will continue to be driven by the pursuit of improving R&D cost efficiency as well as effectiveness.
