Impact of Coronavirus on Indian Pharma Industry

While China is working on the control of the spread of the coronavirus that has claimed about 1300 lives, there is less likely that there is another victim of the outbreak, i.e. Indian pharmaceutical company. The main reason is India imports from China in bulk, nearly 70 percent of its raw material and ingredients to make drugs, doing the business of worth US$ 4.5 billion every year. These ingredients are the key starting materials used in the industry, which vary from vitamin tablets, hormone injections, blood pressure medication, lifesaving antibiotics, etc.

According to the official figures, since 2015, the pharmaceutical ingredients have been top 10 lists of imports in China and the sizeable chunk of these cost the US $ 19.1 billion worth of business. Not only India, even United States drug makers are dependent on China for the key raw materials for medicines that many Americans cannot survive without them. In this article, we will talk about what are the impacts of coronavirus on the Indian Pharma Industry.

As we know, Indian drug manufacturers are to a large extent is dependent on China for sourcing the main drug ingredients. This is largely for drugs like antibiotics- for instance, penicillin G, amoxicillin, ampicillin, and tetracycline for vitamins like Vitamin C and D. All of these are based on drug ingredients made using the fermentation-based process. It is likely to be that China had achieved great dominance in the manufacturing of these drugs ingredients throughout the world. With the impact of coronavirus, it has added a new dimension in the list of ingredients with an air of uncertainty. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency. This led to protocol over the traveling and supplies being tightened up globally, and the movement of materials and people becoming more restricted. This has vastly impacted the production of medicines in the Indian market.

There are several pharmaceutical companies that are affected by the impact of the coronaviruses. Industry officials say trade has already been affected and unless Chinese supplies bounce back quickly, it would lead to scarcity and higher prices in a few weeks. On the other hand, bankers say it is too early to assess the impact of the spread of the coronavirus in China on trade with India. So far, we have not seen anything in the numbers or even anecdotally to suggest there has been an impact. It could be it is too early to judge the impact because trade will be hit badly only if this virus continues to spread.

Though China dominated fermentation-based ingredient making, India has fortunately retained this in the treatment of tuberculosis despite this also being fermentation-based. For instance, take rifampicin that Lupin makes to treat Tuberculosis." Every year, around this time, pharma units in India, keep an inventory of the raw material since they know it is the New Year holiday time in China and units would be shut.

There will be concerns more on the smaller pharma units as compared to the larger units in India because of the Coronaviruses. We are largely dependent upon China for the penicillin G and this is not just for meeting the Indian market needs but also for suppliers to the US with drugs based on this ingredient.

Conclusion 

The Indian government has yet to announce the country’s preparedness for a possible pharmaceutical shortage which can be a major setback for the Indian pharmaceutical companies. Also, Medibyte, a leading PCD pharma franchise in India, are aware of the circumstances and are taking steps despite the impact of the coronaviruse in the Indian Pharma Industry.