The main reason why Indian medicine is cheap is that it imitates patented drugs from developed countries, does not pay patent fees, and does not require investment in early research and development costs. The labor cost is cheap and the cost is low.
The Indian Patent Law passed by the Indian government in 1970 only provides for "process patents". Since then, generic drugs in India have grown rapidly, and it was not until 2005 that India restored drug patents, but only for new drugs invented after 1995 or drugs that can significantly improve their efficacy after improvement. Some Indian pharmaceutical companies are still producing generic drugs while engaging in patent legal battles with European and American manufacturers.
China has strict regulations on intellectual property protection. The person in charge of a foreign-funded drug sales business said that the main difficulty for foreign drugs to enter China is in terms of patents and approvals. Some drugs that have been patented and protected by world intellectual property rights cannot be imitated by other countries and enterprises during the protection period, and the introduction of new drugs must be actively applied by patent formula companies. Even if patent companies voluntarily apply to enter China, they still need to submit various materials to the Chinese drug regulatory and pricing departments to obtain drug batch numbers. This includes clinical trial data with Chinese samples, which takes at least two to three years to complete and obtain batch numbers.
