India's medicine exports to US, Italy on the rise: Commerce ministry

With the government focusing on boosting domestic manufacturing of pharmaceutical products, India's medicine and antibiotics exports have started gaining significant market share in the US.

According to the commerce ministry data, India is the third largest import source of 'medicine put up for retail sale' for the US. The top two are Ireland and Switzerland.

In 2023, the country exported these medicines worth $ 9 billion as against 7.33 billion in 2022.

With this increase in the shipments, India's share went up to 13.1 per cent in 2023 from 10.08 per cent in 2022. Share of the top exporter Ireland fell to 13.85 per cent in 2023 from 17.18 per cent in 2022 because its sales in the US went down to $ 9.5 billion in 2023 from $ 12.5 billion in 2022.

The second biggest exporter Switzerland also saw its share decline to 13.7 per cent last year from 17.4 per cent in 2022.

Similarly, India has increased its share among exporters of antibiotics in the Italian market. It is ranked 10th in that market by increasing its share to 2.12 per cent in 2023 from 0.96 per cent in 2022.

In value terms, the country's antibiotics exports to Italy stood at $ 23.34 million in 2023 as against $ 11.48 million in 2022.

Further the data showed that India's competitiveness is growing in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) apparatus market of Germany.

In 2023, the country made a small gain by increasing its export share in Germany to 1.7 per cent from 0.45 per cent in 2022.

In value terms, India exported theseI machines worth $ 13.02 million last year as against $ 2.93 million in 2022.

India is the sixth largest exporter ofI apparatus, whereas the UK is the leader with exports of $ 460 million.

"Penetrating the EU market is difficult and it is important that we have a base coming in. These reflect some efforts which are being put in terms of monitoring various markets and various commodities to see where growth can be pushed," an official said.

Pharma and medical devices manufacturing is the priority area for the government and these two sectors were the first ones to get a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.