India's pharma exports soar to nearly $27B despite cough syrup deaths

India's pharmaceutical exports this fiscal year are set to grow nearly twice as fast as last year to hit sales of $27 billion, driven by strong US buying, a government-backed trade body, despite deaths linked to Indian-made cough syrups.

The robust forecast comes against the backdrop of earlier concerns from the government that last year's deaths of dozens of children in Gambia, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) linked to drugs made in India, had "adversely impacted the image of India's pharmaceutical products across the globe".

Two other cough syrups made in India killed 19 children in Uzbekistan around December, according to the Uzbekistan government.

India is the world's third largest maker of drugs by volume after the United States and China, and senior pharma trade official Udaya Bhaskar said on Wednesday that the country was too big a player for buyers to move away because of "these aberrations" in Gambia and Uzbekistan.

"As far as the Gambia and Uzbekistan incidents are concerned, if you see in terms of the image of the country, there is a dent," Bhaskar, director general of the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), said on Tuesday.

"But if you see our (April-June) exports, they have grown. We are doing very well in the US market, and we are growing at more than 10 percent there," he said.

"In the past four-five months, the growth in exports shows that people have not taken very, very seriously (any concerns about) the quality of Indian pharmaceuticals," he added.

India's pharma exports rose 3.25 percent in the year to March 31 to $25.4 billion, and Bhaskar said it was set to grow by about 6.3 percent to $27 billion this fiscal year.

Sales to the US, India's biggest market with 30 percent of its overall pharma exports, rose 6.2 percent to $7.5 billion last fiscal year, government data show.

India's overall pharma exports in the April-June quarter rose 5 percent to $6.58 billion.

Country visits

Pharmexcil delegations have visited countries including Nigeria, Egypt and Russia in recent months to allay any concerns about Indian drugs, he said.

"Wherever we are going, people are asking and we are clarifying," Bhaskar said. "We are telling them our stand. We are trying our level best."

Gambia has made it mandatory for all Indian drugs to be tested before being exported to the African country since July 1.

India has since June 1 made it compulsory for all cough syrups to be tested before export.

He stated that besides the Gambia, no other country, including the US, the UK, South Africa, or Brazil, has requested additional tests for Indian drugs following the reported deaths.

Meanwhile, India's exports to Russia, however, have suffered because of the Ukraine conflict.

Sales to the country fell 4.2 percent last fiscal year to $573 million, according to government data, taking Russia to the seventh position from fourth among India's biggest pharma importers.