Giving some respite to the government, the latest data indicates that India's pharmaceutical exports returned to a healthy growth rate last financial year, leaving behind the woes of the pandemic and deaths linked to cough syrup exports.
Total pharmaceutical exports jumped 6 per cent in the year ended March to Rs 1.94 lakh crore (around USD 25 billion) from 1.83 lakh crore in the preceding year.
This is a considerable improvement over the 1.1 per cent growth seen in the financial year 2021-22.
The data comes as a major relief for the government, as Indian companies have been finding it difficult to compete in the US market due to price declines and hyper-competition. Indian companies primarily export generic or off-patent medicines and derive their competitiveness by keeping costs, and prices, low.
The numbers are also a relief to an industry that attracted considerable negative publicity last year after the World Health Organization linked India to the drugs that caused the death of dozens of children in Gambia last year. Furthermore, according to the Uzbekistan government, 19 children in Uzbekistan were killed last December after they consumed two different cough syrups made in India.
Pharma exports play a critical role in maintaining India's foreign exchange reserves and are a key forex earner for the country. The other key earner of foreign exchange for the country is IT services exports.
India depends on these industries to generate enough foreign exchange to pay for its oil imports.
Regulatory measures
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has taken various regulatory measures to ensure the quality of medicines in the country with the Department of Commerce introducing a policy of track and trace system to ensure the authenticity of the exported finished pharmaceutical products.
According to union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers Bhagwanth Khuba, in order to ensure the authenticity of the drugs, the department of commerce has made barcoding mandatory on the secondary and tertiary packages of export shipments.
He said that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare amended the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules of 1945, making it compulsory for a manufacturing establishment to be inspected by the Drugs Inspectors of the Central Government and State Government before the establishment is given a manufacturing license.
The amendment also meant that applicants have to submit evidence of stability, the safety of excipients etc. to the concerned authorities before being granted a manufacturing license.
He also informed that the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, of 1940 was amended under the Drugs and Cosmetics (Amendment) Act 2008, which will ensure that strict penalties will be imposed for the production of adultered drugs.