APIs: the flavor of the season in India

Supply chain disruptions, quality concerns and abrupt price hikes have been some of the issues resulting from over-dependency on a single source for supplies of life-saving drugs and other key raw materials. To mitigate risks associated with over-dependency on other nations, India's Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya says the focus is to build self-reliance and promote the domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, despite the decision to shut down two pharma public sector undertakings and disinvest three others, reports The Pharma Letter’s India correspondent.

In spite of being the manufacturing hub for the global pharmaceutical sector, "we were not the best in terms of research," the Health Minister told Parliament. "We thought about the lack of research when the pandemic hit. Today, we have Covaxin, developed and manufactured by Bharat Biotech; ZyCov-D, a DNA based vaccine which the world has been running after for years, has been built by Indian company Zydus Cadila," he said.

Two more indigenous COVID-19 vaccines will be available in the coming days, Mr Mandaviya told Parliament, adding that third phase trial data for both the new vaccines has been submitted by the drug companies. The minister hoped the data and trial of the two vaccines would be successful. "Both these companies are Indian, the research and manufacturing have also been done in the country," he said, adding with the government’s help Indian scientists had developed a COVID-19 vaccine in just nine months.