India Needs To Diversify Pharma Raw Material Imports, Up R&D Spends: RBI Paper

The high import dependency and surprisingly low R&D intensity of exports in the Indian pharmaceutical sector call for timely diversification of source countries for importing raw materials so as to mitigate potential supply-side bottlenecks. The Covid-19 pandemic has been a “stress test” for the Indian pharma industry and exposed its high dependence on imported raw materials and “surprisingly low” research and development efforts, a paper in RBI's July bulletin said on Thursday.
“The high import dependency and surprisingly low R&D intensity of exports in the Indian pharmaceutical sector call for timely diversification of source countries for importing raw materials so as to mitigate potential supply-side bottlenecks,” the paper by Shibanjan Dutta and Dhirendra Gajbhiye saidIt said the country is the third-largest pharma manufacturer in the world by volume and fourteenth by value, and the sector contributes 2 percent of Indian GDP and 8 percent of the total merchandise exports.