Capital injections could help pharmaceutical industry

India has made significant progress in terms of self-reliance in pharmaceutical products. Prices for indigenously manufactured drugs are the lowest in the world.

The success story of the pharmaceutical sector stems from its reliance on reverse engineering – a process that has allowed quick replication of new drugs at a low cost – to make and sell generic drugs.

This was possible thanks to the overall policy environment created by the Patents Act, 1970, which allowed only process patents.

Priti Suri is the proprietor of PSA. Nikita Ved is an associate.