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After experiencing a slow pace of growth for the past 2-3 years, the Indian pharma exports have witnessed an overall growth of 10.72 per cent during the financial year from April 2018 to March 2019.
According to a recent report released by Pharmexcil, India’s pharmaceutical exports have reached US$ 19.13 billion during the past one year. “After a slow pace of pharma export growth during the past few years, the year 2018-19 has overcome all hurdles and witnessed a considerable growth. Though the herbals have not shown the growth as expected, the formulations sector has witnessed the highest growth of 12.13 per cent. I am hoping that apart from main markets of US and Europe, India is also having a great opportunity to explore the newer markets of China and other unexplored countries which would further increase India’s growth in the coming days,” said Udaya Bhaskar, Director General of Pharmexcil.
Particularly vaccines, which are regarded as part of formulations, had shown a negative growth during 2017-18. However, it has picked up considerably well in the financial year 2018-19. “The previous year, Vaccines had shown a negative growth. Particularly the month of November 2018 witnessed by over 11 per cent less resulting in a cumulative decline of 2.34 per cent in overall formulation growth in 2017-18. Having said this, we have seen a positive growth trend last year which has helped in overall increase of formulation exports,” observed the DG.
Informing about the growth trend of Vaccine exports for the year 2019, the Pharmexcil report said the Vaccine category had witnessed a continuous growth during the months of December, January and February well and this has resulted in an improved cumulative growth of 6.02 per cent by end February. However, in the brief period during the month of March 2019, growth of vaccine export slid to 25 per cent less resulting in a low cumulative growth of 1.31 per cent for the year 2018-19.
The other major category, namely, bulk drugs and drug intermediates has also shown a positive growth of 10.48 per cent. Ayush and surgicals have grown by just 1.96 per cent and 3.19 per cent respectively, while Herbal products have negatively grown by 4.12 per cent for the year 2018-19.
Overall, the contribution of formulation to the overall exports during FY-19 has increased from 69.87 per cent in 2018 to 70.87 per cent in 2019. However, bulk drug exports contribution remained almost the same.
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