India has enough stocks of API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) for about two-three months, industry representatives of drug companies say. India depends on China for around 70 per cent of its requirement of API, the building block for a drug.
Earlier this week, the drug controller general of India gave a list of 58 key drugs (for which India is heavily dependent on China) to associations such as Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, Indian Drug Manufacturers Association, and Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India and asked them to inform the government about the status of raw material stocks for manufacturing these drugs.
These include blood pressure medication Telmisartan, antibiotics such as Levofloxacin and Azithromycin, statins such as Atorvastatin and Rosuvastatin, and a few vitamins. The list also include anti-retrovirals such as Lopinavir and Ritonavir that have been approved by the ICMR for treating coronavirus affected patients.
"We have enough stocks for the next two-three months. Luckily, we keep extra stocks for this time of the year since this is holiday season in China. This time, however, due to the coronavirus lockdown, the holidays have been extended upto February 17. Hopefully, by that time, the situation should improve," said Sudarshan Jain, secretary general, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance. "It's good that the government is monitoring the situation. In the last three months, the government has also taken positive steps such as expediting environmental clearances and incentivising API manufacturing clusters to boost local production," he said.
Big pharma companies had enough stocks for about three months, small and medium companies had stocks for the next 20-25 days, and importers who traded only in raw materials had enough for the next 40-45 days, a member of a pharma advocacy group told THE WEEK. The industry official who did not want to be named said that there was no need for "panic" as some of the manufacturing units in China, outside of Wuhan, had already resumed production. The units that were located in Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, only supplied 15-20 per cent of the API requirement, and the rest came from regions that were situated on the "eastern side of the coast", areas that were at least 700-800 kms away from the outbreak epicentre.
Among the list, the official said that the key concern was in the case of anti-diarrheal drugs such as metronidazole and ornidazole, for which Indian manufacturers depended heavily on China for the API.
The industry member also said that though there was an emphasis on manufacturing APIs in India to decrease the reliance on China. To achieve that, it was important that the raw material used for manufacturing API was also made in India. "Till now, the government has done nothing to incentivise API production in India," he said.
