'We have relatively strong growth and a healthy corporate earnings cycle as positives, but a worrisome current account deficit and high inflation as challenges.'
FabiFlu is the first oral favipiravir-approved medication in India for the treatment of COVID-19. Favipiravir can be used for coronavirus patients with co-morbid conditions such as diabetes and heart disease with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms.
The current total installed capacity of the seven manufacturers of remdesivir is 38.80 lakh vials per month, the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers said in a statement.
Despite unprecedented levels of uncertainty in Samvat 2077, investors have little to complain about on the returns front. The BSE Sensex delivered returns of 38 per cent in this period, while the Nifty registered a return of over 40 per cent. As is the case in bull markets, companies in the small- and mid-capitalisation basket outperformed the benchmarks, with returns almost twice those of frontliners.
The free trade agreement (FTA) talks with India are no longer working towards a Diwali deadline though negotiations are progressing well, UK Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has said as New Delhi expressed confidence on Friday of an "early date" for a mutually beneficial deal. "There are ongoing negotiations as we know on the FTA. There is interest on both sides to see if we can work towards a deal, an FTA, that is beneficial to both the countries at an early date," external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told reporters in New Delhi. It came as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke to his UK counterpart, James Cleverly, and referenced the Roadmap 2030 bilateral agreement signed between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former UK PM Boris Johnson in May last year, with no specific reference to the FTA.
Human presents an ugly truth -- that some people need to die a painful death in order to facilitate the process of finding a cure for deadly diseases, observes Utkarsh Mishra.
Once a difficult market to crack, in recent years, China has relatively opened up its drug market, enacting reforms and speeding up approval time.
State Bank of India, the nation's largest lender, has stopped processing transactions of Russian entities that have been sanctioned by the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, sources said. To effect this, SBI has issued a circular as it fears that any transaction with entities or sectors under sanction will invite sanction on it as well, sources said. No transactions involving entities, banks, ports or vessels appearing on a US, European Union or United Nations sanctions list would be processed irrespective of the currency of the transaction, they said. Payments due to such entities have to be processed by other mechanism rather than through the banking channel, sources added.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is trying to make inroads into BJP-ruled Gujarat where the assembly polls are due later this year.
The share of total health expenditure as part of the gross domestic product (GDP) went down to 3.3 per cent in 2017-18 from 3.8 per cent in the previous two years, according to the national health account data released on Monday by the health ministry. The share of government expenditure as part of total expenditure as well as GDP has gone up from from 3.78 per cent to 5.12 per cent between 2013-14 and 2017-18, which could also explain a decline seen in out of pocket expenditure in 2017-18. Health ministry also emphasised the increase in the government health expenditure as part of the total GDP from 1.15 per cent in 2013-14 to 1.35 per cent in 2017-18.
Drug firm MSD has decided to enter into voluntary licensing agreements for investigational oral antiviral drug candidate 'Mmolnupiravir', which is being studied for the treatment of Covid-19, with Indian drug firms Sun Pharma, Cipla, Dr Reddy's, Emcure Pharma and Hetero Labs, its Indian arm said on Tuesday.
Indian pharmaceutical companies are heavily dependent on China to source fermentation-based active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates to manufacture these medicines, but the coronavirus outbreak there has disrupted the supply.
One hundred and forty nine new individuals joined the rich list club of 1,103 Indians across 122 cities who cumulatively accumulated a wealth of Rs 100 trillion. Bengaluru -based Kaivalya Vohra, 19, of grocery delivery application Zepto is the youngest self-made and the youngest rich individual, according to IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022. The report found 1,103 Indians with a networth of Rs 1,000 crore each - an increase of 62 per cent over five years. There are 221 billionaires (Rs 100 crore networth) in India on the 2022 list - down 16 compared with last year, while 13 people born in the 1990s made it to the list, all self-made.
Sputnik V is already approved in India and Sinovac is unlikely to come in as it does not meet the criteria.
Online travel portals and airlines say the demand from companies is being led by essential services sectors like pharmaceutical, oil and gas, and power.
Covaxin is being indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
India's exports in January rose 25.28 per cent to $34.50 billion on account of healthy performance by mainly engineering, petroleum and gems and jewellery sectors, even as trade deficit widened to 17.43 billion, according to data released by the commerce ministry on Tuesday. Imports grew by 23.54 per cent to $51.93 billion during the month under review. Trade deficit, difference between imports and exports, stood at $14.50 bn in January 2021.
As India wages a daily battle against the second wave of coronavirus cases, a Mumbai clown turns Covid Warrior.
NTPC was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising around 4 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finserv, SBI, Bajaj Finance, Tech Mahindra, Dr Reddy's and Tata Steel.
More than 50 workers were at work in the night shift when the mishap occurred in unit-4.
'Private banks are well-placed to deliver good performance over the next six months.'
As many as 20 central public sector enterprises and their units are at various stages of strategic disinvestment, while six are being considered for closure or are under litigation, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur said on Monday.
A list of who all will be exempted during weekend curfew imposed in Delhi from Friday 10 pm to Monday 5 am in view of surge in COVID-19 cases.
Iran has offered to help India meet its energy needs by relaunching rupee-rial trade for export of oil and gas, said Iranian ambassador to India Ali Chegeni. Chegeni said if both the countries resume rupee-rial trade, bilateral trade can touch $30 billion. Iran used to be India's second largest oil supplier but New Delhi had to halt imports after the former US president Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran and re-imposed sanctions on its oil exports.
Earlier in the day, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over vaccine shortage, saying the Centre should share the vaccine formula of the two manufacturers with other capable pharmaceutical companies to scale up production in the country.
Indian Council of Medical Research had also recommended the use of hydroxychloroquine for treating healthcare workers handling suspected or confirmed coronavirus cases and also the asymptomatic household contacts of the lab-confirmed cases.
India's medical devices imports surged 41 per cent to touch Rs 63,200 crore in 2021-22, led by a 48 per cent year-on-year (YoY) jump in imports from China to Rs 13,538 crore, the commerce ministry data analysed by the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD) has showed. Local industry players say this has led to several small and medium units to shut shop. Rakesh Vaid of Usha Fabs, a garments exporter, had started making N95 masks in his Gurgaon factory during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The government may look at areas around Thonnakkal, in Thiruvananthapuram district, for the facility. If successful, this would be one of the few sites of Sputnik V owned by Russian firms outside that country. Shine Jacob and Sohini Das report.
Acquisitions may have played a role in much of the increase.
'Investors need to expect steady returns over the next one to two years with bouts of high volatility.'
India lost its competitive advantage as China gave fiscal benefits to its local manufacturers. Besides, recent policy flip-flops have, however, dented India's image as the 'pharmacy of the world'.
Biological E Limited plans to complete production at a rate of 75 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine Corbevax per month, anticipating over 100 million doses per month from February 2022 which will enable the Hyderabad-based company to deliver 300 Million doses as promised to the Centre, BE said on Tuesday.
The country's exports for the first time crossed the $400 billion mark in a fiscal on healthy performance by sectors such as petroleum products, engineering, gems and jewellery, and chemicals, according to the commerce ministry's data released on Wednesday. The merchandise exports rose by by 37 per cent to $400.8 billion in 2021-22 until March 21 against $292 billion in 2020-21. Previously, the outbound shipments had touched a record of $330.07 billion in 2018-19.
One Chinese source informed ANI that 10 million new infections are probably occurring daily in China.
The guidelines listed several services including government and private offices that will be out of bounds during the period, while exempting establishments such as hospitals, ration shops, dairies, banks, insurance offices, and print and electronic media. Delivery of all essential goods including food, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment through e-commerce has also been exempted from the purview of the lockdown.
A series of steps taken by the government to promote ease of doing business and liberalisation of foreign direct investment norms have helped India receive record FDI inflows so far this year, and implementation of measures like PM Gati Shakti, single window clearance and GIS-mapped land bank are expected to further push investments in 2022. Notwithstanding the global slowdown and the COVID-19 pandemic, total foreign direct investments into India rose to a record $81.72 billion in 2020-21. During April-July this fiscal, FDI (foreign direct investment) into the country increased by 62 per cent to $27.37 billion.
India will export anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, high in demand globally, only to foreign governments and not to private companies, as the product is under prohibited or banned category of exports, sources said. Although exports of this medicine is completely banned, India has decided to export this anti-malarial drug in sync with its global commitment to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
The government may soon give the green light to bilateral trade between Russia and India in their national currencies to avoid any trade disruptions, multiple people aware of the matter said. While the Department of Commerce has recommended the proposal, an announcement is likely to be made by the finance ministry after further deliberations between the Department of Economic Affairs and Department of Financial Services. "The finance ministry will take a call on how to peg the two currencies," a senior government official told Business Standard. In the past, the two nations have had rupee-rouble trade, and when such an arrangement is implemented again, it will bypass the sanctions imposed on Russia by the West.
The Indian pharma industry is estimated to grow at 9-11 per cent in 2021-22 and in the next few quarters, it will be driven by domestic and emerging markets, according to ratings agency ICRA. In a sample of 21 Indian pharmaceutical companies, ICRA said revenue growth was moderate at 6.4 per cent in the second quarter of FY22, down from 16 per cent in the first quarter of 2021-22. The normalisation of the base and pricing pressures in the US market were the major reasons for slowing growth momentum in Q2 FY22, even as growth under domestic and emerging markets remained healthy, ICRA said in a statement.
'The Centre is planning to procure five million vials of Remdesivir ahead of the third wave. What's better is that this time, the government is paying us in advance,' said a senior executive of a Mumbai-based pharma player which makes Remdesivir. Sohini Das reports.