Crisil stated that though big-ticket acquisitions are few and far between (eg Wockhardt-Merind or Nicholas Piramal-Rhone Poulenc), brand acquisitions of a small order are expected to increase.

Its also adds that the impact of the product patent regime on the domestic pharma sector would be gradual in the first few years and would be felt substantially only after 2010. The factors that would contribute to this transition are the relatively low representation of patented products in the Indian market, the highly fragmented nature of the industry and bottlenecks in the government regulatory system, the report stated.

MNCs are expected to play a more active role with better protection of intellectual property in the new patent regime coupled with the spate of mega-mergers at the global level. Currently, only about 30 MNCs exists in the domestic pharma sector which will also see an increase with some of the medium-sized niche focused global pharma companies evincing great interest in the Indian market, the report states. The Crisil report also states, "Expectations are that these global majors would evince greater willingness in introducing their blockbuster brands in India by leveraging on the distributing strengths of their local entities.