SWOT Analysis of Indian R&D:

Strategic Issues:
The section delves into a holistic assessment of the R&D in the
pharmaceutical sector and that needed for it to emerge as a global player.
The strategic assessment is brought out in the following SWOT analysis.

Strengths:

• Mature industry with strong manufacturing base with capacity to

produce quality drugs at relatively lower costs.
• A very rich base of traditional knowledge in therapeutics i.e.
Ayurvedic, Sidha & Unani.
• Well developed engineering base to produce wide range of
pharmaceutical equipment and machinery.
• Abundance of S&T talent and infrastructure.
• Successful experience in innovative process chemistry.
• Access to brain bank internationally.
• Acclaimed NRI, S&T professionals.

Weaknesses:

• Sub critical R&D investment.

• Lack of innovative R&D culture in industry.
• Poor networking among constituents in the innovation chain.
 • Inadequate framework for clearance of new drug investigation and
registration.
• A policy framework for testing on animals and their import that is not
facilitative.
• Inadequate trained manpower in emerging areas.

Opportunities:

• Due to rising coats of R&D overseas, greater tendency towards

outsourcing and networking.
• Expertise to blend knowledge of traditional medicines with modern
science.
• Increasing competence in molecular biology, immunology and
biotechnology.
• Early R&D wins boosting confidence
• Large numbers of patients covering wide range of diseases.
• Potential for clinical research and initiating clinical trials.
• Opportunity to improve quality standards.

Threats:

• Inability to cope-up with the rapidly changing new drug discovery

technologies and processes at the global level.
• Rapidly changing standard of quality and manufacturing at the
international level.
• Lack of clearly articulated and facilitative national IPR policies.
• Lack of strategy to bring convergence between aspirations of the
small and big players.
• Distortion in priority and public concern on health and pharma issues.
• Reducing tariff levels and dumping can be a threat to survival of
products and industry.
Conclusion:

India ranks fourth in the world in pharmaceuticals, accounting for eight per
cent of the world’s production by volume. The cost of new drug
development in India is about a tenth of that of the developed countries.

The industry is now seeking protection of innovations to create a

competitive environment and strengthen research and development activity
within country.

This is also the demand of several multinational corporations who are

worried about safeguarding their long-term investments in India.
Intellectual property rights will boost international investor confidence, they
assert.

India has abundant natural resources, intelligent and cheap skilled labour and
possibilities of expanding its R& D facilities. At the moment, we spend Rs.
20 billion on the 1225 R& D centers we have. This is 0.6 per cent of our turn
over.

With the information explosion on in the world, the day may not be far when
medical science will have to pay more attention for preventing disease rather
than treating it. Developments in the study of human genome promise
genetic information that would help develop products that will target
specific disease patterns. This will call for a paradigm shift in developments
of drugs.

In the last two decades, according to the Pharmaceutical Research and

Manufacturing of America (PhRMA), more than 350 new biotechnology
medicines are being tested by about 140 pharmaceutical and biotechnology
companies. About 150 of them are targeted against cancer.

Many of the biotech products are not available to doctors in India due to
high products price, high cost of clinical trials and lack of indigenous
technology networks for manufacturing recombinant products. Indian
companies are slowly acquiring facilities for manufacturing and marketing
of biotech products.
Vaccines are being developed against AIDS, cancer, stroke and multiple
sclerosis. One particular product under intense study is a vaccine to be
delivered locally, to myocardial tissues so as to enable new growth of
successful, it is exposed to revolutionize the treatment of schaemic heart
disease.

The New Millennium

Stratospheric ozone depletion, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

of the USA has estimated, would mean 200,000 additional skin cancer
deaths