India is the world's fastest improving pharma market: CPhI report

An industry report released on the eve of the mega pharma expo, CPhI India, has ranked India as the world’s fastest improving pharma market and first for ‘growth potential’ for 2019.

CPhI and its co-located events – organised by UBM (part of Informa plc) – will be held from December 12-14 at Greater Noida, Delhi NCR.

Significant improvements

The India specific findings of the CPhI Annual Report highlighted that India has seen significant jump across all (six) categories, improving its overall score by a massive 11.06% in a single year.

The country showed the largest gains in terms of perceived ‘quality of API’ and ‘finished product’ manufacturing, proving that industry efforts to align standards more closely with the USA and Europe have clearly been noted. But perhaps most significantly, these efforts are also being transferred into reported growth potential for 2019, with India forecast to grow faster than all other major pharma economies, scoring an average of 7.16 – placing it ahead of the USA (7.04) and China (6.81). Survey respondents cited India’s ‘high-growth domestic market’ and ‘expanding manufacturing exports’ as the major drivers. The rise in exports growth potential is believed to be in response to concerted reforms by the CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation) and industry quality improvements in the last few years.

Such was the confidence in India’s pharma market, the nation was ranked joint second for ‘overall competitiveness’ of its pharma industry. India scored an average of 6.53, placing it behind only the US (6.98) and level with Germany (6.53). In addition to this, India saw the largest percentage shift in score for quality of finished formulations, improving by 14.72% since 2017. Most impressively, should the same change be seen in 2019, the country’s reputation for finished product manufacturing will likely see it achieve parity with many European nations (who’s scores have remained the same year-on-year) – a dramatic improvement on just a few years ago.

Commenting on the development, Ms. Cara Turner, Brand Director – Pharma at UBM (part of Informa PLC), said, “It’s undoubtedly a hugely exiting time for anyone looking to do business in this region. There is a notable excitement about CPhI & P-MEC India this year, and the feedback we get from visitors and exhibitors is that they have an extremely confident outlook for 2019 – with all looking for new partners to help drive the country’s next wave of growth.