Indian pharmaceutical companies are ready to take advantage of the new product patent regime, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath has said.
Delivering his keynote address at Royal Institute of International Affiars, Chatham House, London, Nath said, "Indian pharmaceutical industry was fully prepared to take advantage of $50 billion worth of drugs going off patents in the next five years after introduction of the new patent regime."
"We'll grab a major share of this," he said.
Nath pointed out that India presented an ideal confluence of five factors- cost-effective manufacturing, well developed chemical industry infrastructure, strong vertical integration, abundant scientific talent and technical skills and unique synergy in fields of IT, biotech and medicine.
"Time is, therefore, ripe for a quantum leap. Our objective is not only to manufacture drugs, but also to make India a hub for medical research and clinical data," he said.
The Indian pharma industry is a $10 billion industry with 300 companies of large and moderate size and another 10,000 small and tiny firms, an official release said.
Seventy per cent of the production was from the top 100 larger companies, he said.
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