Over the last five decades, India’s life science industry has experienced remarkable growth and evolution. The implementation of the 1970 Patent act marked the beginning of a period of reverse engineering that enabled Indian pharma companies to venture into advanced markets with generic drugs in the 1990s. This growth – with 665 FDA-approved manufacturing facilities, India boasts the highest number outside the United States – has been propelled by the industry’s expertise in manufacturing and process development, and an abundant skilled talent pool. Simultaneously, in the 1990s, Indian vaccine manufacturers began supplying vaccines to developing nations. Currently, they contribute to 40 per cent of the World Health Organization (WHO) prequalified vaccine products. In recent years, the pandemic has ignited a transformation within the vaccine industry, becoming the central focus of global economies. India has not only manufactured ‘Covishield’ (Serum Institute of India, Pune) vaccines for the world but developed a successful indigenous Covid vaccine, ‘Covaxin’, propelling the country from a manufacturer to an ‘innovator’.
