Now Reading: Pharma sector urged to shift from scale to trust for global edge
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Pharma sector urged to shift from scale to trust for global edge
India’s pharmaceutical industry must move beyond cost and scale to focus on quality, regulatory trust, supply-chain resilience and innovation, according to a joint Grant Thornton Bharat-Ficci report. India ranks third globally in pharma volume but 11th by value, exporting $30.5 billion worth of drugs in FY2024-25. The report flags data integrity as a major weakness: about 60 per cent of FDA warning letters involving Indian pharma sites in FY2025 cited data-integrity issues, against 15 per cent globally.
Separately, industry leaders including Sun Pharma’s Dilip Shanghvi, Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Glenmark’s Glenn Saldanha said on Monday (5 October) that India is at the right moment to shift from being the ‘pharmacy of the world’ to an innovation-led industry. Speaking at the Indian Foundation for Quality Management’s symposium, they called for sustained R&D investment, regulatory reforms and a stronger ecosystem. The Grant Thornton-Ficci report also noted the pharmaceutical PLI scheme has attracted Rs 45,774 crore investment, generating over 113,000 jobs as of March 2026.
Indian Opinion Analysis
Both sources report uniform, neutral coverage of separate but complementary events: one is a report calling for quality and trust, the other is industry leaders advocating innovation-led growth. The Grant Thornton-Ficci report leads with data integrity as a weakness, while the industry symposium foregrounds optimism about India’s readiness to innovate. Neither source frames the government critically, the report acknowledges policy support via PLI, and the leaders cite government schemes as accelerators. The balanced reading is that India’s pharma sector faces a common challenge, building regulatory trust, and sees a common path forward in innovation, with next steps including sustained investment and faster regulatory reforms.
Coverage: 2 sources, 2 neutral
Sources (2): business-standard.com (neutral report), thehindubusinessline.com (neutral report)
This brief was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Methodology and corrections.
