Pharma exports to miss $25-mn target deadline by a year

Pharmexcil expects to achieve the target by March, 2015

The Pharmaceutical Exports Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil) today said the $25-billion pharmaceutical exports target will be achieved by March, 2015, missing the earlier time line of 2014 set by the commerce ministry.

Pharmexcil director general PV Appaji attributed this to the general slowdown in the global economy. Exports during the last five years grew by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16 per cent and in 2011-12 it was 23.34 per cent in dollar terms, according to him.

“Of all the commodity exports, pharmaceuticals have been doing well during the current year and we may end up touching around $17 billion in exports at a growth rate of 25 per cent as compared with $13.4 billion last year,” he said.

The pharma body, which works under the Union Commerce Ministry, has launched Brand India Pharma Campaign popularising the country as the pharmacy of the world in a bid to create favourable environment and confidence for the Indian pharma products globally. This is view of the expectation that the global pharma market is moving towards generics products. While the global pharma industry is expected to reach $1,200 billion from the present $960 billion by 2016, the share of generics business is likely to be over a third of that at $430 billion from the present $242 billion, according to Appaji.

The US market continues to be the biggest growth driver for Indian generics registering a growth of 33 per cent last year followed by 28 per cent in the European Union.

Exports by small and medium pharma companies have been growing much faster as they are focusing on markets that are considered as small or negligible by the large players, Appaji said.

A proposal to facilitate upgradation of domestic manufacturing units in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and elsewhere to the standards prescribed by the US and UK is also being prepared to broad-base the export potential of the domestic industry.