Achieving Aatmanirbharta In APIs Are We On The Right Track?

As India gears up to celebrate its 75th Independence Day, self reliance in APIs remains a key goal for the pharma sector. AatmaNirbharta will be crucial for the sector as it continues to protect the country from the existing and emerging health threats

- Akanki Sharma

So far, under PLI1, which is specifically for imported APIs, the approvals have been granted for 36 out of 41 key starting materials (KSMs)/APIs, with a minimum committed investment of over Rs 5,300 crores. Identification of investors for other KSMs/APIs is underway, and soon we hope that this will also be finalised

Dr Viranchi Shah Senior Vice President, Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association (IDMA)

The criteria for selection of companies for availing the benefit under the PLI scheme does not extend to companies in the CRAMS space where the entire business model is to develop and manufacture APIs

Harshil Dalal Global CFO, Dishman Carbogen Amcis

PLI scheme is only for the greenfield projects. Existing (brownfield) facilities with idle capacity will not be eligible for incentives under the scheme. Thus, the benefits will not be seen immediately. Only when the greenfield plants become operational, then the benefits will start kicking in, which will take at least a couple of years

Anil Khanna Partner, Wisdomsmith Advisors

For the last two decades, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has been growing almost 1.5 times the Indian GDP. The current government has an aggressive plan of amplifying the industry size from $41 billion to almost $120-150 billion in 2030. Globally, India has benchmarked its position in formulation development and manufacturing. However, India's dependence on China (primarily) and a few other countries for importing active pharma ingredients (APIs) to manufacture drugs is a problem that looms large in the Indian pharma sector's path to progress.