New Delhi:
India's top pharmaceuticals export group said the government's curbs on some drug exports amid the spreading coronavirus outbreak has caused panic in Europe and will "severely impact" businesses in the sector.India's list of restricted medicines account for 10% of its total pharmaceutical exports and includes several antibiotics, as well as Paracetamol, a common pain reliever also sold as acetaminophen as as the coronavirus outbreak plays havoc with supply chains.,
The government’s list of 26 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and medicines accounts for 10% of all Indian pharmaceutical exports and includes several antibiotics, such as tinidazole and erythromycin, the hormone progesterone and Vitamin B12.
On Wednesday, Dinesh Dua, chairman of the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), said that some of the restricted APIs and medicines were widely exported to Europe and the United States.
"I am getting a huge number of calls from Europe because it is very sizeably dependent on Indian formulations and we control almost 26% of the European formulations in the generic space. So they are panicking," Dua said.
"This would severely impact our members," Dua said.
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The Food and Drug Administration in the United States, where Indian imports accounted for 24% of medicines in 2018, said on Tuesday it was working to determine how the restrictions will affect U.S. supplies.
The restrictions could hurt India's image as a pharmacy to the world and would impact shipments which were already lined up for export at warehouses and ports, Pharmexcil argued in a letter to India's Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), which was reviewed by Reuters.
The DGFT did not respond to a request for comment.
"The exporters not only suffer the monetary losses but also their credibility and reputation in the international market is at stake," said the letter, which urged the government to allow exports of drugs manufactured before the restrictions kicked in.
It was unclear how the restriction would impact the availability of these medicines in the countries that import from India and also depend on China. In the United States, for instance, Indian imports accounted for 24 percent of medicines and 31 percent of medicine ingredients in 2018, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.