Indian Healthcare Industry

When my mom went to a hospital in the US, the doctor there recommended getting a CT scan done in the US. The doctor’s reason? It’s trust-worthy in the US as opposed to one done in a country like India. Hey doc, if we were so bad at it, would so much of America’s healthcare work be done in/from India?

Take the generics industry for starters. But first, what’s a generic? Once the patent on a medicine expires, anyone can manufacture it because, well, the patent has expired. Then it’s called a generic. Ranbaxy and Dr.Reddy’s Labs are extensively into generics, which they sell in the US and Europe.

Then there’s CRAM: Contract Research and Manufacturing. Western pharma companies increasingly outsource parts of their medical research and manufacturing to Indian companies.

As India grows richer and increasingly becomes the market to sell in, Western companies find the requirements here are different. The cost of the product is the key factor. Given the lack of hospitals and medical centers in every part of India, portability of the equipment is very important. Having a battery backup is a must. Since all these are not requirements in the West, they rely on people in India to identify local requirements and then to design and manufacture the product for a fraction of the cost in the West.

Plus, Western healthcare companies know that the cheaper products made for the Indian and Chinese markets today will eventually be sold in the West as well. Why? Because healthcare in the West is prohibitively expensive. And as the West ages, their need for healthcare will increase. And at that point, they too will start to care about the cost of the machines. Which is what India already does!

Heard of medical tourism? State of the art surgeries are performed in India for a fraction of the cost in the West. Westerners come here for surgeries that have huge waiting lists back home. It’s also the reason why the Indian government reacted so sharply and swiftly to the super-bug scare. There’s so much at stake!

Medical scans done in the West are routinely diagnosed by doctors in India. (Overnight while the West sleeps). There are also people here who transcribe reports that are dictated by doctors in the West.

In fact, the Indian healthcare industry has gotten so big in terms of sales in the US that the US medical regulator, FDA, has now opened offices in India to monitor their compliance to US standards.

Wake up & read the papers, not just medical journals, doctor.

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