Invest in building agile supply chains

The current pandemic has significantly disrupted the global economy, not to mention business continuity for many companies.

- Alagu Subramaniam

This has also led to global disruption of supply chains for many industries, including the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, thus making it necessary for countries to introspect and plan accordingly.

In India, approximately 65- 70 per cent of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) required for manufacturing key medicines in the pharma sector are imported. The Indian pharmaceutical sector caters to over 50 per cent of global demand for various vaccines, while serving to 20 per cent of the global supply by volume. It accounts for 1.5 per cent of the value of global pharmaceutical production and had a high probability of becoming the third-largest market in the world, during the pre-pandemic period.

Like medicines, medical devices and equipment are also key drivers of growth in the pharmaceutical industry, with India currently being the fourth largest medical devices market in Asia after Japan, China and South Korea. In fact, the Indian medical device market is expected to grow to $50 billion by 2025.

However, even before the pandemic hit, the pharmaceutical supply chain infrastructure had numerous challenges, including: