Indian pharma firms trail global peers in R&D, innovation, and talent metric

American multinational pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly ranked first overall for R&D intensity and third for the proportion of PhD employees, the report said. Among Indian firms, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories ranked first in both R&D intensity (10.3 per cent) and the proportion of PhD employees (0.97 per cent). Bengaluru-based Biocon ranked first among Indian firms for publications per billion USD revenue and third overall. Sun Pharmaceuticals ranked first among Indian firms for patents by revenue and third overall, with 636 patents per billion USD of revenue, surpassing many global and Indian firms, according to the report.

- TBG NETWORK

Indian pharmaceutical firms are falling behind their global counterparts across key performance indicators, including R&D intensity, the proportion of PhD employees, and the number of patents and publications generated per billion USD of revenue, according to a report by the Foundation for Advancing Science and Technology (FAST India) in collaboration with IIFL Securities.

The largest disparity was observed in the number of publications per billion USD revenue, with global firms producing 8.4 times more publications than Indian firms, the report noted. Global firms generated 5.6 times more patents and 8.4 times more publications per billion USD of revenue compared to Indian firms. In terms of Research and Development (R&D) intensity, global firms outperformed Indian firms by a fac