Changes in US put Indian pharma's R&D to test

With medicines going off patent over next 3 yrs, pharma majors have stepped up spending on research

Indian pharmaceutical companies were dogged by concerns over quality issues, poor regulatory compliance and price fixing in 2016. But even as they made news for the wrong reasons, beneath the surface, a bigger change was under way.

Over the past year, many companies have started to rework their strategy in a bid to move up the value chain and build a pipeline of specialty products to align themselves to the new reality of the US market where the number of simple molecules going off patent is set to fall in the coming years.

According to Morgan Stanley India Executive Director