This increase is despite the decreased growth of drug sales in the US - the world's largest market - which has seen a tightening of regulations and aggressive competition.
US-based Merck is confident that its cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil will help it to secure a position among the country's top five drug companies in the next five years.
The smaller players in the business - combined under the Small Pharmaceutical Industries Confederation - have raised objections to the proposed Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices.
Leading Indian drug majors, such as Ranbaxy Laboratories, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Piramal Healthcare and Wockhardt, are in-licensing popular products from overseas drug makers to boost their domestic sales.
Last week, scientists working with the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) in New Delhi decoded the genome of a 52-year-old man from Jharkhand after nine weeks of study -- a first in the country. The feat has helped India join a select club of countries -- the US, UK, Canada, Korea and China.
Indian medicine accounted for over 50 per cent of all drug seizures in Europe for intellectual property rights violation last year. Industry experts said this indicates the seriousness of the problem. This data was revealed in the recently-released 2009 report of the European Union on the customs enforcement activities of its member states.
R-Infra quoted Rs 42-crore (Rs 420-million) premium over the bids of rival companies such as GVK Power and Infrastructure Limited, GMR Infrastructure, B Sennaih and C&C, JMC Srei and Sadhbhav, sources told Business Standard.
The corporate affairs ministry and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) are confident of meeting the April 2011 deadline to shift to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Move comes within months of acquiring Wockhardt hospitals. Fortis Healthcare, a hospital chain promoted by former Ranbaxy owners Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, is close to a major acquisition overseas
India has become the most sought destination for investment by Japanese companies, next to China, and ahead of other Asian countries and emerging economies like Russia, Brazil, Mexico and even the United States and the United Kingdom.
The government has begun work on expanding the country's National List of Essential Medicines, which was last revised in 2003.
The controversial issue of exclusivity of drug-trial data -- which saw overseas multinational companies and Indian pharma companies taking opposite positions -- is back on the table.
Mumbai's Metro rail system, which is scheduled to take off by next year, will have a Geographic Information System for mapping the entire rail tracks and nearby areas to enhance safety, maintenance and traffic regulation.
The central government is planning to mandate biometric identification for clinical trial volunteers in the country to bring in global standards and to weed out unethical practices in the industry, which is less than a decade old.
After decades of hunt for fortune abroad, India's pharmaceutical companies now plan to strike gold in their own backyard. Large players from Ranbaxy to Dr Reddy's and Piramal Healthcare are all headed to rural India to boost their revenues.
Ranbaxy has six-month exclusive marketing right to anti-herpes Valtrex.
'It might take 10 years before medicines of decent quality and price reach right down to the last village of India. Ranbaxy, with its India focus, intends to get there in five years.'
Unregistered sources of consignment raise quality questions.
This is in the backdrop of the arrest of R Vasudevan, the seniormost CLB member, on November 24. This has left the board with just two members to hear the pending cases that run into thousands.
When United States-based drug major Merck bought Schering-Plough early this month, it decided to go off the beaten track. Instead of having one managing director for the merged entity, it decided to retain both: Naveen A Rao will continue to head Merck's subsidiary MSD Pharmaceuticals in India and K G Ananthakrishnan will retain his position as MD of Schering-Plough's subsidiary Fulford India.
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