The Healthcare landscape in India

India’s healthcare sector is large and expanding rapidly, supported by a resilient private sector, and the Government of India’s healthcare initiatives. The Government of India has identified healthcare and well-being as a vital industry to boost economic development, and has increased spending on health up to 2.5 % of GDP. Medicine spending in India is expected to grow between 9-12% over the next five years.  

Why India?

• Market size: India has a rapidly growing healthcare market with healthcare being one of the largest sectors both in terms of revenue and employment, and is forecasted to reach £287.8bn by 2022
• High demand: Increased health awareness, improved penetration of healthcare services and health insurance have been driving consumer spending on health and wellbeing in India.
• High rates of success: India offers one of the most competitive and diverse markets for pharmaceuticals with multiple UK business enjoying visibility and success with the presence of global British pharmaceutical and healthcare companies.

Opportunities in India

• Medtech: There is notable demand for innovative medical devices (75-80% of medical devices in India are imported) as well as opportunities to manufacture medical devices domestically.
• Digital Health: There are numerous opportunities for UK suppliers in this area due to Covid-19 with wider adoption of new digital health and wellness technologies, remote monitoring, tele-medicine/tele-health.
• AI/Data in Healthcare: Current and potential use cases in diagnosis, treatment, risk assessment and prognosis of medical conditions.
• Diagnostics: There is a strong demand for point of care devices to cater to the growing healthcare needs of people in smaller cities, and rural India.
• Medical Infrastructure: Both the government and the healthcare industry are working towards rapid expansion of modern healthcare infrastructure to Tier II & III cities in India to provide improved access to healthcare to address unmet needs.

Lifesciences landscape in India    

India is the pharmacy of the world and the largest provider of generic medicines globally, occupying a 20% share in global supply by volume, and also caters to 62% of the global demand for vaccines. 
India is ranked third globally in terms of pharmaceutical manufacturing by volume. 
The Indian pharmaceutical and Life Sciences market, other than generics and biosimilars, provides an array of opportunities for UK players in sub sectors such as new drug discovery and delivery, vaccines and nutraceuticals. India can also be leveraged as a hub to export to other markets due to the global reach of Indian pharmaceutical companies. 

 Why India?

• Market Size: India boasts a strong cluster of pharma and biotech industries with 3000+ companies and 10,000+ manufacturing sites of which 262+ are FDA approved sites; the highest outside the USA. The Indian biologics market is expected to register a CAGR of 22% from 2019 to 2025
• High demand: The Indian pharmaceutical industry is now seeking to move up the global pharmaceutical value chain by investing into R&D for drug development, drug re-purposing, process improvement and digital manufacturing. An ageing population, increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, a push for universal healthcare by the government is driving the demand for more products and services

Growth drivers and opportunities:

• R&D: Indian pharma companies are transitioning to build pipelines of innovative drugs, ‘next gen’ therapies, drug discovery and delivery solutions and process manufacturing technologies
• End-to-end manufacturing: UK’s expertise in R&D and India’s manufacturing capability call for the perfect partnership to address global health challenges
  
• Vaccines: India is the world’s leading supplier of vaccines
• Resilient supply chains: India imports 60 to 90 % of APIs (depending on the type of API). The Indian government is also attracting international companies to operate out of India, to build resilient supply chains capable of meeting global needs, especially in API and critical drugs manufacturing
• Nutraceuticals: There is an increased demand for nutraceutical products, a sector poised to grow by 17% to reach £13 bn by 2025
• Statistics: India is Asia’s fourth largest market for medical devices.