Growing Indian pharma market provides incentives for foreign acquisitions

A recent IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics global study has revealed that greater access to medicines by the emerging middle class, coupled with stronger economic prospects in developed nations, is expected to bring total spending on medicines to the $1 trillion threshold in 2014, and to $1.2 trillion by 2017, reports The Pharma Letter’s India correspondent.

Moreover, with consumer spending on health care in India rising from 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1995 to 7% in 2007, and expected to rise to 13% by 2015, it is reason enough for multinationals to get aggressive on their purchases of Indian drugmakers.

From November 2011 to July 2013, as many as 74 pharmaceutical sector proposals were approved by India's Foreign Investment Promotion Board, with the country receiving around $2 billion FDI during this period. Though 96% of FDI was in existing projects, Greenfield projects attracted only $87.35 million, notes TPL’s local expert in a follow up to a report on Indian government FDI policy.