ArmInfo. About 30 leading Indian pharmaceutical companies demonstrate their products at the Indian-Armenian pharmaceutical business conference - exhibition, which is being held in Yerevan on November 11-13. The exhibition-conference was organized by the Government of India, the Embassy of India in Armenia and the Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (PHARMEXCIL), established by the Ministry of Trade and Industry of India.
At the opening ceremony of the event today, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of India to Armenia Kishan Dan Dewal noted that Indian pharmaceutical companies see great potential for deepening cooperation with their Armenian counterparts. <This conference is a great opportunity to deepen the ties between India and Armenia in the field of pharmaceuticals, which, I am sure, will be properly used by Indian and Armenian companies. Indian medicines are already widely available in the Armenian market. Over 150 out of 5,000 registered medicines in Armenia are produced in India. I hope that the exhibition and conference will give impetus to new mutually beneficial agreements that will provide Armenian consumers with an even wider range of high-quality safe and effective medicines from leading Indian manufacturers>, the ambassador said.
In turn, RA Minister of Health Arsen Torosyan welcomed the representatives of Indian and Armenian companies participating in the conference and wished them fruitful cooperation. Abhai Sinh, senior director of PHARMEXCIL, representing the pharmaceutical industry in India, noted that his country is the world's largest supplier of generic drugs. It accounts for 20% of global shipments. In India, there are 3,000 pharmaceutical companies with a strong network of more than 10.5 thousand manufacturing enterprises. The cost of production in India is only a third of the cost of production of similar drugs in the United States, and in Europe - almost half. The specialist added that India is the source of 60,000 generic brands in 60 medical categories and produces more than 500 different active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The export of generic drugs is one of India's strengths. In 2018-1919, pharmaceutical exports amounted to 19.2 billion US dollars.
Recall that the first visit of the PHARMEXCIL delegation to Armenia took place in March 2011. Following its first conference, a number of contracts were signed between Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers, Armenian importers and pharmaceutical companies, which led to a significant increase in the volume of imports of products of leading Indian pharmaceutical companies to Armenia.