Author name: Ananta Kar

Last October, India’s pharmaceutical exports to the United States plummeted 23.7 per cent in a single month as tariff uncertainties triggered panic across the sector. By November, exports had rebounded with 9.8 per cent growth. This whiplash recovery encapsulates India’s pharmaceutical sector resilience—the world’s third-largest by volume provisioning 20 per cent of global generics demand—which

Thirty years ago, India’s pharmaceutical industry faced extinction. The 1995 TRIPS agreement forced product patents on a sector built entirely on reverse-engineering, threatening to obliterate the cost advantages enabling affordable generic production. Today, that same sector exports $30.5 billion annually—a sixteen-fold increase since 2001—commands 20 per cent of global generics supply, and holds 48.7 per

Ninety days. That’s how much time a pharmaceutical manufacturer can now save bringing a generic drug or biosimilar to Indian patients. On 28th January 2026, the Union Health Ministry unveiled sweeping amendments to the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules 2019, abolishing test licence requirements and introducing simple online intimation for bioavailability and bioequivalence studies

A generic drug manufacturer in Gujarat can now access all 27 European Union markets without paying a single rupee in tariffs. A medical device producer in Maharashtra suddenly faces European competition arriving 15 per cent cheaper than before. Both outcomes stem from the same transformative agreement. The India-EU Free Trade Agreement, sealed on 27th January

A cancer patient in Mumbai could soon pay 15 per cent less for European biologics. An Indian pharmaceutical manufacturer might capture new European markets worth billions. Yet the same trade agreement enabling both outcomes has sparked fierce debate about whether India‘s generic drug industry—supplying 20 per cent of global generics and keeping essential medicines affordable