Indian Generic Drugs in High Demand in China

NEW DELHI: As the Chinese Government fails to bring the number of Covid-19 cases under control, the hospitals across the major cities of the country continue to grow out of control. With the country failing to provide ample stocks of essential medications, Chinese citizens are now looking at Indian generic medications.

The Indian pharmaceutical industry is among the largest in the world. These medicines are not only very effective but also cheap in price compared to those produced elsewhere. And these drugs are now in very high demand in the Covid devastated China. So much so that the experts are now warning the citizens that fake varieties of these drugs are now flooding the Chinese markets.

Citing cost restraints, the National Health Security Administration announced that the Paxlovid oral medication for Covid manufactured by Pfizer cannot be included in its registry of drugs in the basic medical insurance. The reason has been mentioned as the quotation price cited by the company being too high. And this has led to the growing demand for generic versions of this drug over various platforms in China.

According to Sixth Tone, a Chinese media house mentioned that Indian-made generic drugs Primovir, Paxista, Molnunat and Molnatris are now in high demand over the last few weeks. All these drugs have the approval of the Indian government for emergency use, but not of the Chinese government.

China is one of the biggest pharmaceutical markets in the world, but it is controlled by only a handful of multinational companies. While India has requested China multiple times to decrease the import duties on pharma products so as to make them more affordable for Chinese citizens, the country never paid any heed to them. As a result, many illegal parties have started to produce counterfeit versions of these popular medications, mentioned the head of the Beijing Memorial Pharmaceutical.

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