The Indian pharmaceutical industry is expected to maintain a healthy 18 per cent annual growth rate for the next quinquennium, more than twice the expected growth of world pharmaceutical industry.

While India's annual output of bulk drugs and formulations is about Rs 9,000 crore, two per cent of world output,the large domestic market and relatively inexpensive trained manpower have enabled the country to emerge as a low cost production centre, according to Exim bank's latest paper on `Pharmaceuticals and herbal medicines, a sector study'.

The new markets of developing countries in Asia, East Europe, Africa and low cost production base are expected to help a growth rate of over 20 per cent in Indian exports, the study said.

Some significant trends in the pharmaceutical industry include focus on development of herbal and ayurvedic drugs particularly for export market, restructuring of operations by outsourcing, reduction of labour force, disinvestment of bulk drug plants, setting up of 100 per cent subsidiaries for introducing newly patented drugs and Indian companies functioning as R&D centres or production bases for multi-national corporations.The production value of formulations during '80-81 and 1994-95 increased from Rs 1,200 crore to nearly Rs 8,000 crore.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.