India's biologics market set for strong growth in 2019

India’s biologic market is set for strong growth in 2019 according to new data from CPhI.

Findings from CPhI’s bio league tables predict strong growth for India’s biologic market throughout the whole of 2019 in the build-up to CPhI India, which is set to take place later this year in November.

India’s growth potential scored level with well-established bio markets in Germany, Ireland and Japan and was behind only the United States. The country’s growing biosimilars industry was highlighted as the primary driver of growth, with respondents to the CPhI survey citing ‘India’s rising domestic demand, bio investments and the potential for increased exports to advanced markets’. India already has over 70 approved biosimilars in the domestic market and the country’s market penetration is expected to increase quickly in 2019 as the middle classes increase demand.

Government subsidies for the production of biosimilars, as well the expiration of existing biologics patents and closely aligned regulatory guidelines is helping augment the country’s growth potential in biologics.

However, data from CPhI shows that India also received the second lowest overall scores for ‘quality of biologics manufacturing’ and ‘biologics innovation’.

Cara Turner, brand director, Pharma, said; “CPhI and P-MEC India has been extremely successful and we announced before the event that India had secured the number one spot for growth potential of small molecules in 2019. These new findings however, show that biosimilars are also set for dramatic growth in 2019 and that India is expected to be amongst the fastest growing bio regions. In fact, over the next few years we anticipate seeing more bio machinery manufacturers attending P-MEC and a steady growth in our bio audiences.”

Demand in Europe and the USA is expected to sustain longer term growth rates as these markets open-up further to biosimilar encroachment and encourage new entrants. Undoubtedly, the lower cost of manufacturing in India makes biosimilars exports attractive to Western markets though initial market entry may be slowed by high clinical development costs. Data also suggests that 2019 will see a larger number of Western-Indian partnerships bringing new biosimilars to patients in both the EU and USA.

The research highlighted that unlike its small molecule industry – which improved rapidly in the 2018 league tables – the bio industry in India is still viewed by international pharma as substantially behind the leading markets in terms of quality and innovation. Notably, the top ranked nations of the United States, Germany, and Japan, and the second tier of advanced nations, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland, the UK, France and Korea.

Relatively low scores for innovation and quality likely reflect the lack of any un-patented biologic development in India, with the majority of work being retained in Europe and the United States.