India seen as perfect pharma partner: F&S

Frost & Sullivan (F&S), the leading international growth consulting company, has rated India as the choice of partner for the rest of the world for pharmaceutical collaborations.

The consulting firm, which convened a two-day global pharmaceutical partnership summit-Global PharmAlliance 2005-in Mumbai recently, projected that India offered a competitive advantage in five key metrics for the pharma industry-capital efficiency, process engineering, high quality, qualified chemists and low labour cost.

It also estimates that the total outsourcing market for pharmaceutical and biotechnology drugs in the world is to reach close to $60 billion by 2010.

The pharmaceutical manufacturing service outsourcing alone would cross $25 billion by 2011 out of which, more than two dominant players-India and China will contribute 10 per cent, the consulting agency stated.

India is also home to high-quality research and development talent at a cost that is substiantially lower making it an ideal destination for multinational companies to set up research bases here. "The global partnership in pharmaceutical industry is important now as the cost pressures, globalisation, complex pricing and regulatory environment are forcing pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies to focus on improving operation efficiency," said Dorman Followwill, global vice-president (Healthcare Practice), Frost & Sullivan, while sharing his ideas on rationale of manufacturing service outsourcing and its trends.

Global PharmAlliance 2005 was gathering of experts and leaders from India and global life sciences industry. The other important speakers at the conference were Ananth Patil, director, Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals Inc, J C Saigal, executive director Nicholas Piramal India, Vasudeo Ginde, president and managing director, iGate Clinical Research International and Aditya Sapru, managing director, F&S.