Indian pharmaceutical companies are looking at a windfall in the lucrative US market after Pfizer loses the patent of its libido-boosting drug Viagra in 2020.
Indian companies are readying their own versions of the iconic blue pill used to treat impotence to target around 5 crore Americans who suffer from erectile dysfunction. The US is India's largest market for export of medicines.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US health watchdog, has given approval to 15 companies, including seven Indians, to start manufacturing sildenafil citrate, otherwise known and sold as Viagra.
The Indian companies vying to sell the drug in the US are Dr Reddy's, Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Hetero Drugs, Mcleods Pharma, Aurobindo Pharma, Rubicon Research and Ajanta Pharma.
When the Indian firms start selling the pill in the US, prices are expected to fall by an astounding 99 percent.
At the moment, each pill costs $65 (Rs 4,450) in the US. Pfizer had launched a generic version at half the price in 2017 but it won't be able to match the price offered by the Indian pharma companies.
Macleods Pharmaceuticals, which started exporting medicines to the US in 2012, sells a local version of Viagra in India called Macsutra for Rs 58 per tablet.
Ajanta Pharma's Viagra clone Kamagra sells for just Rs 32 per tablet.
The entry of Indian players would be a major blow for Pfizer's domination of the erectile dysfunction drugs market. Pfizer earned $1.685 billion (nearly Rs 11,000 crore) from sales of Viagra alone in 2014. The total value of this market was $4.35 billion in 2016.
However, Indian companies have to take into account the increase in the FDA licence fee, which has risen to Rs 1.1 crore in 2018 from Rs 45 lakh.
What is going to be the cherry on the cake is the likelihood of FDA approving the sale of Viagra as an over the counter (OTC) medicine following the example of the UK.
The sheer volume of the US OTC market will present a never-before opportunity for the Indian companies.
