The Indian life sciences industry has been innovating within its means right from its early days by mastering the art of process re-engineering during the process patent regime.
Innovation which is expected to be the leading growth driver, has made the Indian life sciences industry focus on building their portfolios of speciality and niche drugs or entering into alliances with the innovator companies to tap this key business opportunity. Indian life sciences industry is making constant efforts to have a thrust on innovation as the key value creator in all the aspects of the business through technology, services, manufacturing and excellent quality initiatives to come out with innovative products matching global standards.
The industry is embracing innovation and the latest technology to bring to the market novel drugs for treatment of unmet medical needs innovation is being imbibed in scaling up expertise in advanced research areas, building high value intellectual property, creating optimal funding mechanisms and the entrepreneurial environment to take ideas from lab to market, strengthen and ensure consistent supply of capacity to encourage research and foster a favourable policy and incentive framework.
The Indian life sciences industry has been innovating within its means right from its early days by mastering the art of process re-engineering during the process patent regime. With the onset of the product patent regime, the industry felt the need to build expertise in formulation research and discovery research in order to achieve global competitiveness.
The Industry today, strives to create a sustainable system of innovation that consistently ensures medicines for all, profitability and global market leadership. Some of the key focussed areas for the industry are Industry-Academia linkages, public-private partnerships and key organisational initiatives.
Innovation requires cutting-edge technologies and has a long incubation period. A Cooperate and Collaborate strategy has proven to be successful in this scenario. Indian companies have adopted this strategy which is reflected in the number of strategic R&D collaborations across the drug discovery and development value chain making the transition from a service-based to a partnership-led relationship. Further collaborative alliances in which both the stakeholders pursue a high-risk and high-reward strategy are increasingly appearing on the alliance landscape.
The focus of the Indian life sciences industry is on Profitability—to ensure sustained growth in all the key pharma markets of the world, through innovation in research and development while maintaining high standards of quality and ethics. The industry aspires to emulate the success of the global pharma industry and is striving to create a balance between earning healthy profits and realising their responsibilities towards society.
In order to acquire a global status, the Indian life sciences industry places its foremost priority on well-established and robust regulatory system. The industry is looking at innovation in the regulatory standards, which play a key role in the progress. The industry is looking at a strong, well-equipped, empowered, independent and professionally-managed body which can address the key regulatory issues and build faith in Made in India brand by establishing a robust regulatory system on the lines of US FDA.
Innovation can play a vital role in providing access to improved healthcare to patients. Public health objectives will be realised if innovation is fostered. Healthcare benefits both the individuals and the economy as well. Most of innovations today are patient-centric. The Indian life sciences industry is inculcating innovation as the mantra across different functional departments in key areas of the organisation such as quality, sales, marketing and creating differentiation through innovative platforms to enhance effectiveness and improve business performance.
Life sciences industry, which is knowledge-based, is undoubtedly one of the most innovative sectors of the Indian economy. The industry is looking at innovation in all aspects of the business and its strategy in tapping key opportunities in the current and emerging business segments and key emerging markets to achieve the required growth and scale in the short and long term.
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