Global Pharma Continues To See Potential In Investing In R&D In India

Innovative biopharmaceutical companies around the world continue to strive to accelerate the pace of innovation and deliver effective medicines to patients quickly and efficiently. By investing more time, energy, and resources in collaboration across the R&D ecosystem and leveraging more sophisticated research and manufacturing tools, these companies in India continue to invest in R&D and advance the science forward.

- Dr Manbeena Chawla

The global pharmaceutical industry is an important aspect of the world economy today, providing about one trillion US dollars in revenues annually. The American pharmaceutical industry accounts for about 40 per cent of these revenues. However, China is fast catching up as having the fastest growth in the industry. European pharmaceuticals have also shown high revenues in prescription sales.

The US based Johnson & Johnson is at the top of the list with a sales revenues of about $17.8 billion in the first quarter of 2017 while Pfizer’s sales stood at $12.8 billion. Swiss based Novartis made $11.54 billion in revenues in the first quarter while Roche went ahead with $13.02 billion in the same period. French pharmaceutical company Sanofi made $9.42 Billion while Germany based Bayer made $10.67 billion in the first quarter of 2017. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) made a revenue of $9.58 billion with Abbott following behind with a sales revenue of $6.3 billion in 2017 Q1.

Many of these pharmaceutical companies have global operations in different countries including India for conducting research and development. Manufacturing innovative pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines and consumer healthcare products are the basic research activities of these companies. Over the years, companies have invested in state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in India that extend across a wide range of pharmaceutical and healthcare categories.

Pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Abbott, Novartis, Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson have invested a lot over the years in setting up R&D centers in India. It began with the earliest center coming in 1971 by GSK while the latest R&D center was established by Abbott in 2012.