India Expands Role as Drug Producer

[OhioChick]

HALOL, India — Below an ancient hilltop temple to Kali, the Hindu goddess associated with destruction and change, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries churns out generic versions of cancer drugs and epilepsy medications bound for the United States.

Business is so brisk that Sun, with revenue of 41 billion rupees ($880 million) last year, predicts sales will grow 20 percent this year and is expanding its Halol factory.

“This site specializes in making difficult things,” Sampad Bhattacharya, Sun’s vice president in charge of operations, said during a recent factory tour. The blue and gray concrete building, which will be nearly 800,000 square feet after the expansion, would not look out of place in the pharmaceutical manufacturing centers of New Jersey, except for the herds of cattle and buffalo wandering nearby.

India’s drug industry — on track to grow about 13 percent this year, to just over $24 billion — was once notorious for making cheap knockoffs of Western medicines and selling them in developing countries. But India, seasoned in the basics of medicine making, is now starting to take on a more mainstream role in the global drug industry, as a result of recent strengthening of patent law here and cost pressures on name-brand drug makers in the West.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/business/global/07indiadrug.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business

Yet, we were told that Canadian drugs were unsafe?

[cutlassmama]

1. I'd trust Canadian drugs over Indian drugs any day.

[hughee99]

2. Revenue of $880 million for cancer treatment medication

what is that, like 1000 doses?