India's pharmaceutical industry is now the third largest in the world in terms of volume and accounts for 10 per cent of the world's production. India ranks fourteenth in terms of value. The country ranks fourth in terms of generic production and seventeenth in terms of export value of bulk actives and dosage forms.
The Indian domestic pharmaceutical market is now over US$ 20 billion and is expected to grow at a high compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.5 per cent till 2015.
India has 5.5 million chemists and druggists, and the organized retail market accounts for just 2 per cent of the industry but is posting a year-on-year growth of 30-40 per cent. The country's pharmaceutical retail market is expected to cross the US$ 10 billion mark in 2010 and be worth an estimated US$ 12 billion- US$ 13 billion by 2012.