Pharmaceutical research in India: Current status and opportunities

Abstract

Pharmaceutical industry in India has made significant positive impact to health care outcomes in India and other developing as well as developed countries. Indian pharma companies have used excellence in synthetic organic chemistry and art of reverse engineering to successfully develop many cost-effective generic medicines. Signing of TRIPS agreement and protection of product patents led to evolution of Indian pharma research. Detailed description of all three major areas of Indian pharma research, namely generic research, biosimilars and drug discovery, has been attempted with special focus on drug discovery. Role of industry-academia collaborations to further enhance innovation in pharma industry has been discussed and a working hypothesis to this affect has been proposed.