This year, India received 1,312 applications for patent of pharmaceutical products, next only to the U.S., which received 2,111 applications. Indian pharma companies have come a long way from the days of manufacturing copycat drugs to inventing critical life saving drugs, some of them for global giants like Pfizer, Novartis, Glaxo Smithkline Beecham and Eli Lily among others.

The $4.5 billion Indian pharma industry has many established players like Ranbaxy, Cipla, Cadila, Dr. Reddy’s, Wockhardt and Sun Pharmaceuticals, who spend a major part of their resources in R&D churning out drugs and patents that was earlier considered a forte of multinational pharma companies.

Today Indian pharmaceuticals are launching drugs at a frenetic pace in Western countries and challenging home grown giants in their own turf with the promise of better drugs at affordable prices. Take the example of Ranbaxy that has got approval to market Sumatriptan Succinate tablets and Glimepiride tablets.

Not just that, Indian pharmaceuticals started attracting international attention, which made them a potential acquisitions target. Teva Pharma, the Israel based generic pharma giant and Basel, Switzerland based Sandoz are looking at India to acquire pharma companies.