A few years ago, there was a movie in China called "I am not the God of Medicine". This movie was adapted based on real events, and there are indeed many expensive drugs in China. From India, generic drugs with similar therapeutic effects but low prices can be purchased.
I'm not the God of Medicine stills
Firstly, we need to explain the concept of generic drugs. Generic drugs do not refer to counterfeit or inferior drugs. Each new drug has a patent protection period of 20 years after its launch, within which it can only be manufactured and sold by its developer. After the expiration of the protection period, as long as the pharmaceutical factory meets the standards and strictly follows the formula and relevant regulations of this drug, they can manufacture and sell these drugs, which is called generic drugs. According to this rule, generic drugs can be manufactured in every country, and so can China. So why is India the only one that dominates?
India has a large base of poor people and a high unemployment rate. If a large number of poor people become ill, it will definitely seriously affect national stability and social security, and at the same time, it will also lose a large number of cheap labor. So the Indian government must find ways to provide these poor people with affordable medicines.
In order to further protect domestic pharmaceutical companies, India has also implemented price controls on drugs, which means foreign pharmaceutical companies cannot make any money in India and have to withdraw from the country and give up the market. This space is then divided up by local pharmaceutical companies. In this way, with the support of the government, India's pharmaceutical industry quickly flourished.
The various decisions of the Indian government are also crucial for the development of Indian pharmaceuticals to its current position in just a few decades. After India's accession to the WTO, the government directly stipulated that even drugs that had not reached their protection period could still be imitated by Indian pharmaceutical companies. Although this may lead to infringement of patent rights for many international pharmaceutical companies, Indian pharmaceutical companies have also been sued for this. The patent owner of the prototype of the medicine in "I am not the God of Medicine", "Gleeve," has sued before, but due to the protection of the Indian government, it was ultimately resolved.
