India needs to restore faith in the ‘world’s pharmacy’ 

INDIANS have long been proud of their pharmaceutical sector. It’s a big exports earner in a country that can’t have too many. It boasts a number of well-regarded, profitable companies. And its exports to other developing countries allow Indians to think of ourselves as benefactors, and therefore leaders, of the Global South.

Our success exporting generic medicines in particular has led us to take a dim view of modern patent protections – and we have soaked up the approval of anti-Big Pharma activists in the West.

We ought to be a little less self-satisfied and a little angrier. For more than a decade, it has been clear that too many medicine makers in India have not been doing their duty by their customers, in India and abroad. That’s bad in any industry – and outright infuriating when it comes to medicines.