Africa could learn from India’s burgeoning pharma sector

India is the global pharmacy, producing and supplying essential drugs to more than 200 countries. Its drug market is valued at $15.64bn (Rs930bn; £10bn; €12bn), of which more than 40% comes from exports.1 2 India has more than 10 000 producers and more than 262 factories approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.3

As African countries grapple with the HIV/AIDS pandemic, coupled with malaria and tuberculosis, they increasingly buy cheap generic drugs from India. In 2012 Africa accounted for almost a quarter of India’s drug exports. In the late 1990s a campaign to improve access to antiretroviral drugs in Africa started a process that has brought the price of these drugs down from more than $10 000 a patient a year—using drugs sold by multinational drug companies—to less than $150—using drugs sold by Indian generic manufacturers.4 But African …