Reportedly Gaurav Jain, Vice President and Co-head of ICRA, said the global demand scenario is largely expected to remain stable for indian pharmaceutical industry owing to inelastic nature of prescription drugs though some impact on volume growth will be felt owing to lockdown (lesser OPDs / Elective surgeries) and lower economic growth. “The impact of lower demand will be felt more in less developed countries which are additionally negatively impacted owing to low crude oil prices,” he said.

Overall, ICRA expects the domestic pharmaceutical industry to grow at 4 to 6 percent in the financial year 2021 owing to coronavirus impact. As per ICRA research, the post-onset of Covid-19 manufacturing activity has gradually started in china with shipments/air cargo arriving in india for key starting materials. The domestic pharmaceutical industry is highly dependent on imports, with more than 60 percent of its active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) requirement being imported, and in some, specific APIs like cephalosporins, azithromycin and penicillin, the dependence is as high as 80 percent to 90 percent. Of the total imports of APIs and intermediates into india, china accounts for 65 percent to 70 percent.

“The recent introduction of Rs 10,000.0 crore bulk drugs park and production linked incentives for API manufacturers by the Union government will lead to reduced dependence for the domestic formulators on imports from china and augurs well in the long run to manage supply disruptions. The incentive scheme covers 53 APIs which are critical from import dependence on china with few API/KSM being entirely imported,” states the ICRA study.