​China is poaching Indian pharmaceuticals to make their formulations better

The race between Asia’s two leading economies is now getting tougher as each one intends to defeat the other in every way possible. Now having intruded in all paths of India, China is now poaching senior scientists in Indian drug companies. Indian chemists’ knowledge of English being vital for formulation of medicines, the hiring has gone rampant for Chinese drug firms.

China is ahead of India in bulk drugs by a wide margin and India leads in production and export of generic drugs, especially to regulated markets. However, both nations boast of equal number of US FDA-approved manufacturing facilities.

India has some 700 US FDA approved facilities, while China has about 600 such FDA approved plants. However, India got approvals for more than 300 drug master files (DMFs) accounting for nearly a third in the US market, whereas China lagged with around 150 DMFs approved, according to an Edelweiss report of November 2014.

China has already recruited around 50-60 Indian pharmaceutical professionals over last few years. Chinese pharmaceutical companies are offering tempting compensations, almost double and at times, triple of what Indian firms pay.

CV Narayan Rao, executive vice president at Natco Pharma, who was in China for nearly five years as head of Asia Pacific operations for the joint venture of Dr Reddy's Laboratories , said, "Apart from hefty pay package, Indian scientists get attracted to the robust urban and manufacturing infrastructure the Chinese entities offer, apart from a safe work environment."

Confirming the trend, director general of India's Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) PV Appaji has said, "Several instances of certain leading Chinese pharmaceutical firms hiring top Indian pharmaceutical scientists have come to our notice. It could be aimed at augmenting filing of abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) in the US and other regulated markets as China is currently building huge capacities to produce copycat medicines. We guess this trend should over a period of time help Indian companies increase their presence in China and vice versa."