India is the third largest producer and major supplier of generic medicines in the world. At the India Leader Summit 2024, Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava highlighted that India’s global pharmaceutical position has led to massive savings in health care systems across the world, especially in the US.

“India’s pharmaceutical industry stands out with the largest number of US FDA-approved pharmaceutical plants outside the US, accounting for 25% of all such facilities. Medicines manufactured in India are expected to generate revenue to the US healthcare system worth $219 billion by 2022 and 2013. “It has helped save $1.3 trillion between 2015 and 2022,” he noted.

During the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, the Union Secretary said that India makes almost half of the world’s vaccines. “Of the 8 billion vaccine doses produced globally last year, India manufactured 4 billion doses,” he said, noting that India is known as the “pharmacy of the world”.

India has also implemented reforms in medical education, replacing old rules with the National Medical Commission Act.

This has resulted in an increase in the number of medical and nursing colleges, thereby reducing the gap in the availability of health professionals.

The Health Secretary said that India is creating a health workforce that will not only meet domestic needs but also contribute globally.

“Out-of-pocket expenditure as a share of total health expenditure has declined by 25% between 2013-14 and 2021-22,” he said.

He also underlined the strong health partnership between India and the US, especially in areas such as pandemic preparedness, disease surveillance, and antimicrobial resistance.

The role of collaboration between the National Centers for Disease Control (NCDC) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with programs such as the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) was also highlighted.

“More than 200 Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers have been trained, with more than 50 currently in training,” he said.

Additionally, India and the US have launched a strategic framework to optimize the biopharmaceutical supply chain through the Bio-5 alliance. In 2023, both countries committed to advance cancer research, launching the US-India Cancer Moonshot Dialogue, which focuses specifically on biomedical collaboration in cervical cancer research.

The initiative involves collaboration with Indian institutions such as AIIMS and Tata Memorial Hospital and has evolved into the Quad Cancer Moonshot initiative.

As part of this, a grant of $7.5 million has been allocated for cancer diagnostics in the Indo-Pacific region, and India is to contribute 40 million vaccine doses to support cancer prevention efforts under the GAVI and Quad programmes. Used to be.

Initiatives such as the India-US Health Dialogue have already made progress in disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness.

The Health Secretary expressed hope that both countries will continue to strengthen global health security by pursuing research, technology transfer and capacity building through public-private partnerships and joint vaccine initiatives.