In May this year, top representatives of Indian drug companies were in Washington to pave the way for a secure and sustainable Indo-United States partnership for affordable medicines.
With Donald Trump set for a second term in the White House, pharma industry insiders do not expect this to upset the apple-cart, despite the former US President’s “America First” campaign.
The affordable medicines initiative to ensure a sustainable pharmaceutical supply-chain will only gain in strength, said Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance’s Sudarshan Jain, who was part of the delegation. Both sides of the political aisle, in the US, are keen on affordable medicines for their people, he added.
Industry representatives say the efforts for a resilient partnership could be expanded from finished drugs to Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and Key Starting Materials (KSMs), to de-risk the single-source dependence of countries. The annual pharmaceuticals-linked trade between the two countries stood at $7.5 billion (as of March 2023), according to industry estimates.
While the contours of the new Trump administration are still to be known, industry observers are, however, nervous on the Intellectual Property front – and the reciprocal approach they may demand from India, for American drugmakers and medical device companies in India.
Affordable contribution
Vishal Manchanda, Senior Vice-President (Institutional Research) with Systematix Group, observed that the US Biosecure Act (that looks to restrict US companies from working with some Chinese companies), also had bi-partisan support. So, the outlook for US-exporting drugmakers, following the new US political dispensation, would be neutral tending to positive, he added.
An IQVIA report commissioned by the IPA, pointed out that Indian companies had supplied 47 per cent of all generic prescriptions filed in the US and 15 per cent of the volume of biosimilars. In fact, they provided nearly “half of generic medicines paid for through Medicare and commercial insurance, providing affordability to employers and federal programs,” the report said.