Indian API and generics firms want a bigger share of the Japanese market | 12 May, 2015

Indian generics firms see opportunities in the Japanese drug market according to a trade delegation that visited Tokyo last week seeking supply contracts. The Japanese Government has been trying to promote use of generic drugs since 2007. The idea is that higher non-branded prescribing rates will cut public healthcare costs and reduce the financial burden faced by patients.

• Gurpreet Sandhu, managing director of Reva Pharma, told CPhI Japan delegates that India is now a major generics supplier explaining that: “We as a nation were primarily making API, today we a country called on for product development, things have changed in the last eight to ten years.” He used Indian firm Lupin as an example of this evolution. “Lupin was an API manufacturing company in India today is the big player in Japan's generics market as a result of acquisitions” Sandhu said, also citing firms like Dr. Reddy's Aurobindo and Indian firms that have grown in the country. He also predicted that: “In the next 12 months you will have a major acquisition by Sun Pharma” explaining that this personal view is based on his own research.