Logistics upgrades are key to unlocking India’s pharma fortune

Experts have forecasted that pharma could be India’s largest export vertical in coming years. Good Distribution Practices (GDPs) will be critical to growth as the country looks to close the gap between its volume and value levels.

Bright future ahead

The American Journal of Transportation (AJOT) notes that India’s pharma exports could reach heights of $20 billion by 2020. At the moment, the region exports around $16bn of medicine to 200 countries. Upgrades to the country’s regulatory position have enabled this growth.

The logistics industry is one of the country’s predominant trades attracting 13% of GDP spend towards its framework improvement. India is forecasted as a lucrative market for temperature controlled packaging and containers.

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Pharma Airfreight

According to AJOT that medical drugs make up 40% of Mumbai International Airport’s total cargo, in response to this it is vastly increasing its cold storage capacity.

The World’s largest cold storage capacity

In 2014, India managed to pass the US’ refrigerated warehouse capacity. Thereby holding the title for the nation with the largest cold storage capacity in the world. This is positive as medicines that require temperature control are charted for aggressive growth with the rise of biologics and biosimilars. In previous years, India’s cold capacity was labeled by experts as insufficient which was the leading cause for its high annual wastage levels.

Experts have noted that solar power could make a positive attribution due to the low manufacturing and operating costs of these facilities. The government is taking action to keep improving the growth of the cold chain storage facilities.

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India’s cold chain management in general, however, is in need of some organizing with lacking infrastructure and disjoined supply chains hindering the market’s growth. Stakeholders need to obtain and increase their accountability to improve the quality and streamlining of operations in pharma.

Some have even noted that a logistics revolution could be on the horizon for India however supply chain efficiency is going to be imperative to support this growth and reduce the threat of bottlenecks.

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