After COVID Scenario, India Becomes the Major Manufacturer of Several APIs: Find Out Here

With abundant skilled workers and raw materials, China and India have become significant participants in the international API market. Global pharma giants are now sourcing increasingly from nations other than China due to the escalating geopolitical tension between the West and China. India now imports a significant number of APIs from other nations, particularly China. Due to its heavy reliance on imports, the nation is susceptible to supply chain interruptions and price changes at certain times, primarily during the time of Covid-19. India's pharmaceutical sector has been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a disruption of supply chains and a drop in demand for non-COVID drugs, which has resulted in a significant drop in APIs.

The pandemic has also highlighted the country's dependence on China for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), with India, importing around 70 percent of its APIs from China, which has made the availability of major APIs difficult during the time of the pandemic. Due to this the government's emphasis on encouraging self-sustained API manufacturing in the nation, the Indian API sector is at a critical crossroads now. With technological advances and market stabilization, self-sustained API production is steadily increasing in India in order to prevent reliance on the Chinese market and focus on more and more manufacturing activities to avoid the shortage of API within the domestic market.

As per sources, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has witnessed massive development over the last few years, especially when the whole world was fighting against the Covid-19 pandemic, and is expected to reach around 13 percent of the size of the Indian Pharmaceutical Market by improving and adding different strategies, affordability, and innovation in terms of their technologies, manufacturing processes, improving their logistic sectors.

Considering the above scenario, the Indian Pharmaceutical industries have successfully been able to dominate the Indian domestic market along with the international market as a major manufacturer and exporter and have somewhat reduced their dependency on the Chinese market for its availability. Among various APIs, some of these include Ofloxacin, Naproxen, Levocetirizine Dihydrochloride, Metformin Hydrochloride, Oxytetracycline, and Omeprazole. Also, an antidumping act on some of these and the Production Link Incentive (PLI) scheme further supported the positive market trend for the Indian API manufacturers.