Challenges of Indian Pharmaceutical Industries to Meet World Requirement during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, after the outbreak that was first reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic affected world economy including the pharmaceutical sector. The health crisis unleashed in the world because of this pandemic and the attempts of various countries and organizations in the world to contain it have also fuelled the greatest economic crisis in modern history. This study aims to access, analyze, and highlight opportunities and problems of the Indian pharmaceutical sector in the broader national health-care industry during the COVID-19 particularly for contract manufacturing The recent changes in the field, at the institutional and corporate levels, have placed India in the spotlight of the global pharmaceutical market, but several threats and weaknesses could limit this expansion. Descriptive and inferential analyses have been based on questionnaire, data extracted from authenticated data sources. Subsequently, a narrative strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis was performed based on the results of prior investigations and on qualitative data that were retrieved from a marketing intelligence examination to generate an overall scenario analysis. Indian pharmaceutical companies have faced several challenges on various fronts. In the home market, drug prices are controlled by the drug price control order; therefore, there is strong pressure on revenues and subsequently on costs. In the international market, threats derived from pharmaceutical multinational companies are emerging as tough obstacles to overcome. This study provides a global overview of the potential growth and development of the Indian pharmaceutical sector, comparing it with internal trends and external competition. The most relevant contribution of the research relies on the shift to innovative production that Indian companies must adopt (after years of focusing only on generic drugs), and in this vein, appropriate industrial marketing solutions are indispensable.