India boosts pharma PLI to cut reliance on Chinese imports

Upgraded plan will have more drug intermediates, active pharmaceutical ingredients.

- Priyanka Sharma

India is looking to give a significant boost to its production-linked incentives for drug manufacturing, especially in terms of its aim to reduce the domestic pharmaceutical industry's dependence on China for raw materials.

The upgraded PLI scheme will include more molecules used in manufacturing key starting materials (KSMs), drug intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), as per a communication issued on 14 May by the department of pharmaceuticals, which Mint has reviewed.

Details like allocation, capacity and incentive ceiling for the scheme are worked on, a department official said, declining to be identified.