A recent Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study has projected that R&D spending in India will increase from $2 B last year to more than $25 B by 2025. Much of this increase will be attributed to Big Pharma in the West shifting work to India. In BCG interviews with 40 Big Pharma Execs, 70% indicated they were happy with their alliances in India and 75% said they expect to increase activities.
R&D Spending In India Is Projected To Mushroom // Pharmalot.
The reasons behind this shift are not hard to fathom:
- Lower costs. Trials currently run 60% less than in the US.
- Good pool of treatment-naive patients. India sites also recruit 4x faster.
- Growing pool of qualified researchers
Among drugmakers, Pfizer, GSK, Lilly and Novartis ran the most trials -- together accounting for about 1/3 the total in India. I guess Lechleiter is Ok with farming out all clinical trials despite all whinging about immigration policy and working in the US.
The most cited impediments to doig even more work in India, include: lack of coordination with alliance partners, insufficient support from senior management [at partners], and differences in executing plans. Regulatory uncertainty and the intellectual property landscape are also viewed as somewhat unsettled. None of this seems to be slowing down current growth -- and you can likely expect that to be maintained until cost advantages start leveling out as compared to the West.
Posted by Bruce Lehr June 29th 2011.
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