The latest news from Indian pharm and healthcare, including Piramal Enterprises’ decision to demerge and list its pharma arm, the country’s 15 pharma billionaires, Danish CNS firm Lundbeck’s decision to shutter its Indian operations, Bharat Biotech’s connection to the world’s first malaria vaccine, and the two million missing workers within India’s healthcare system.
India’s Piramal Enterprises to demerge and list pharma business (Reuters)
Indian conglomerate Piramal Enterprises Ltd (PEL) said on Thursday it was demerging its pharmaceutical business and listing it as a separate entity as part of a move to simplify its corporate structure.
Piramal’s pharma business will now be demerged and consolidated under its unit Piramal Pharma. Shareholders of Piramal will get four shares of Piramal Pharma for every share they hold in the conglomerate.
India has 15 pharma billionaires in the top 100 and their net worth is over $85 billion (Business Insider)
Fifteen of India’s top 100 richest belonged to the pharmaceutical industry.
Their cumulative net worth of these pharma billionaires has doubled to ₹6,35,000 crore (over $90 billion) since 2018.
These pharma titans make up a tenth of the total net worth ($775 billion) of the top 100 richest people in India today.
Danish pharma company Lundbeck downs shutters in India (Economic Times)
Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck that develops drugs for targeted brain diseases, including depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and migraine is exiting India as part of the company’s global strategy.
The $2.7 billion Lundbeck, which is based out of Bengaluru, has a sales and marketing team of around 100 people in the country. Lundbeck had brought out its patented anti-depressant drug into India a few years ago.
World finally gets a malaria vaccine and it has an Indian connection: Bharat Biotech (The Print)
Scientific efforts that spanned three decades came to fruition Wednesday when the World Health Organisation (WHO) gave its nod to the world’s first vaccine against any parasitic disease.
RTS,S (trade name Mosquirix), which has been developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), significantly reduces the risk of severe disease in malaria-infected children.
For India, this is good news on two counts — the country’s own significant malaria burden; and the fact that by 2029, Indian firm Bharat Biotech is slated to be the sole global manufacturer of the vaccine.
Two million of 5.7 million workers missing in India’s health system (Fortune India)
A recent study has found that over two million people who are counted as healthcare workers in an official dataset could be missing in action within the country’s healthcare system. The study, “Health Workforce in India: Why, where and how to invest?”, has been carried out by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Public Health Foundation of India.
