India's top drugmakers step up R&D spending to boost presence in regulated, emerging markets

The Indian pharmaceutical sector has stepped up its R&D spending in a bid to capture a larger market share in highly regulated and emerging markets, according to a new report from PharmaBiz, a leading source of pharmaceutical information in that country.

The R&D expenditure of the top 25 drug companies have increased almost 17% to 32.1 billion rupees ($690 million) during 2008-09, up from 27.47 billion rupees in the previous year. The R&D expenditure as per cent of their standalone net sales worked out to 7.75% in 2008-09 compared to 7.60% the previous year. However, the PharmaBiz Study shows that very few companies are spending over 10% of their net sales on R&D.

With these investments, Indian drugs companies have been able to get more and more approvals from highly regulated markets and spread their presence in the international market. Indian companies have created strong bases of R&D facilities and several multinational firms and well-known institutions are looking forward for R&D tie-ups with them. Besides, anti-infectives, cardiovasculars, gastrointestinals, musculoskeletal, diabetes, central nervous system, respiratory and oncology therapy segments, these companies are working hand in hand with the government and other voluntary agencies to step up their medical and social interventions to deal with critical issues like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, swine flu and female foeticide, the report notes. Details of individual companies' R&D spending and activities are included in the PharmaBiz report.