ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
unlikely to change in the near future as well. Rising demand for healthcare and associated spending are fueled by an aging population; the growing prevalence of chronic diseases and comorbidities; the development of costly clinical innovations; increasing patient awareness, knowledge, and expectations; and continued economic uncertainty. Therefore, there are enormous prospects for strengthening the domestic health and pharmaceutical industries in India and Africa. This is also an opportunity where both can collaborate for the well-being of their respective citizenry.
The resurgence of Africa in recent years has coincided with the rise of India as a global player, development partner, and investor. Africa and India together cover about 1 / 4th of the world’ s land area, support over 1 / 3rd of its population and harbour about half of its disease burden. Africa has been a focus of India’ s foreign policy since independence, and India is playing a crucial role in extending healthcare cooperation to the African region to fight the scourge of fatal diseases like HIV / AIDS, malaria, TB, infectious diseases, and low maternal and child mortality. As both Indian and African economies are poised to grow rapidly in the coming decades, India could play a larger role in this sphere by increasing access to its high-quality and low priced pharmaceuticals, setting up manufacturing units, creating healthcare infrastructure facilities within Africa, promoting medical tourism and telemedicine services, capacity building, etc.
India is poised to carve a niche for itself in the global pharmaceutical market, and is already informally referred to as the pharmacy of the world.( Schaffer and Mitra, 2005). India’ s strength in pharmaceuticals lies in its strong generic drug industry. It currently manufactures over 400 bulk drugs and 10,000 formulations. As these are cost competitive in comparison to western products, it helps to reduce the medicinal prices significantly and thereby, extend access to affordable medicines to a larger number of people. The country also has a large pool of scientists and engineers who have the potential to steer the industry ahead to an even higher level. India ' s biotechnology industry comprising bio-pharmaceuticals, bioservices, bio-agriculture, bio-industry, and bioinformatics is expected to grow at an average growth rate of around 30 percent a year and is anticipated to value $ 100 billion by 2025. The exports of pharmaceutical products were valued at $ 12.5 billion in 2015-16.
The Indian pharmaceutical industry has clearly demonstrated that it has the potential to be a part of the solution for achieving universal access to healthcare. A number of Indian drug manufacturers have demonstrated their ability to offer affordable essential medicines that comply with stringent quality standards. India also has linguistic advantage in terms of its command over the English language, which many African countries use and understand too. Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers can also set up manufacturing plants in Africa by taking advantage of the international IPR exemptions( until July 1, 2021) for least developed countries( LDCs), as was agreed by the TRIPS Council.
Africa, today, presents an enormous opportunity in terms of economic cooperation and collaboration; a continent of 54 countries with a population of over a billion people, and the region is home to four of the world’ s ten fastest-growing economies. The African pharmaceutical industry, too, is growing at an unprecedented pace. With a compound annual growth rate( CAGR) of more than 10 percent and with spending on pharmaceuticals expected to reach $ 30 billion by 2017, Africa is one of the most dynamic pharmaceutical markets in the world. Its market value is projected to rise to $ 40-65 billion by 2020. Demand for private healthcare in Africa is growing as wealth on the continent expands. About 34 percent of the population falls under the category of middle class, spending between $ 2 and $ 20 daily according to the African Development Bank.
The greatest shared asset between India and Africa is their young people; about half of the population in each region is under 25 years of age, aspiring for a share in the economic growth. Armed with knowledge and technical skills to solve local problems, these young people have an opportunity to learn from each other’ s experiences.
Africa can benefit from India ' s expertise to build a robust health infrastructure and
44 • Africa Day Special • 2018