India’s journey to become the world’s largest vaccine producer might offer insights to Africa in its quest to create a continental pharmaceutical industry.
The British did not denigrate traditional Indian medicine with as much zeal and condescension as in colonial Africa. Indian and Western medical traditions co-existed in colonial India. This accommodation, as well as a potentially large Indian market are key to the rise of the Indian pharmaceutical industry.
Pasteur Institute of India, the Haffkine Institute for Training, Research and Testing, as well as subsidiaries of British, other European and American companies such as Bayer, Burroughs Wellcome, and Merck made pharmaceutical products in India before India’s independence in 1947. They were also fostering the growth of skilled manpower.
Products of our own country
India’s push for independence famously called for ensuring that the needs of a typical Indian were met with products ‘of our own country.’ From the outset, Independent India treated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics as strategic inputs and this included medicine.
Hence, successive State and National governments in post-colonial India supported both the inherited and new Indian-owned pharmaceutical institutions and enterprises. Most importantly, public policy in post-colonial India supported new Indian-owned makers of the raw materials, the active ingredients of medicines.
This high-level focus on pharmaceuticals led to the launch of the Central Drug Research Institute in 1951. Today, it is India’s leading research organization. Other initiatives followed. By 1971 India had over 19 public-sector institutes and enterprises manufacturing vaccines and stimulating the growth of local scientists and technicians. Today, India has little need to import expertise.
The Indian Patents Act of 1970 barred patents on drug and vaccine products but recognized the processes of production. India took this bold stand against a key part of the existing intellectual property rights regime out of concern with the global dominance of Western pharmaceutical companies. This forced Western-owned pharmaceutical companies in India, as well as local entrepreneurs to turn to making generic and out-of-patent vaccines and medicines.
Another pivotal decision was taken in 1986 when the Department of Biotechnology was created specifically to help local private investors acquire cutting-edge technologies in the production of
medicines. The Department was also tasked with supporting Indian universities and scientific institutes to create training programs in biotechnology with pilot projects on vaccines for cholera, Japanese encephalitis, neglected tropical diseases, rabies, and tuberculosis.
In 2005, thirty-five years after the passage of the Indian Patents Act, India made the decision to join the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. In effect, India agreed to recognize product patents in such areas as pharmaceuticals and chemicals, and not just the processes used in their production.
But, crucially, by 2005, the Indian generic pharmaceutical industry had gained valuable experience and had a good track record. The industry could now act as the local producer for global companies that were willing to share intellectual property in return for royalties. For thirty -five years, the Indian pharmaceutical industry was deliberately nurtured and protected during its formative days. By 2005 it was ready to play its part on the global stage.
As India’s population expanded from 340 million in 1947 to 1.2 billion in 2005, the government covered the basic cost of immunization under its Universal Immunization Program. This offered India’s nascent pharmaceutical industry a large, reliable, and expanding market. Crucially, India bet on its own institutions, scientists, and technicians. ‘Of our own country’ was not a mere slogan. It was backed up with allocating resources to relevant private and public entities.
In the early 1990’s Western pharmaceutical companies moved away from vaccines on the World Health Organization’s Essential Program on Immunization to more profitable products. Indian companies stepped in. They became the beneficiaries of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ‘s drive to bring vaccination and immunization to low-income countries.
It is these highly focused public investments in science and workforce development, an entrepreneurial spirit nurtured by consistent government policies, and a large market which led to the emergence of companies such as Biological E and the Serum Institute of India. Today, the Serum Institute of India is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of vaccines and a principal supplier to Africa as was evident at the height of the COVID-19 crisis.
Could India’s experience inform Africa’s efforts to produce medicines especially vaccines? Could India be a template for Africa? These questions will be the subject of the final discussion.
