India’s pharmaceutical exports grew by 10.5 percent to $1.26 billion in the month of April from a year earlier. The Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) expects a healthy rate of growth in pharma exports at around 12 percent in current fiscal on the back of rising demand of drugs from African countries. The government has set pharma exports target for current fiscal at $25 billion.
In the previous fiscal, Indian pharma exports grew at a slowest pace in 15 years at 1.2 percent to $14.84 billion amid growing tension with the US over intellectual property rights (IPR) related issues. The previous slowest growth rate for domestic pharma exports was in FY10 at 5.9 percent. The US accounts for about 25 percent of India's pharma exports. Presently, US pharma industry is contending that India's IPR laws particularly with regard to pharma sector discriminate American firms and put pressure on the US government to take actions against India. Further, major domestic players such as Ranbaxy and Wockhardt are facing imports alerts on some major plants issued by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) in 2013.
Indian is the top exporters to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region countries. The prevailing political turmoil between Ukraine and Russia which has led to political and economic tensions in the Crimean region, has also hit the businesses of leading Indian pharmaceutical companies.