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India’s annual drug and pharmaceutical exports touched a record $30 billion in FY25 bolstered by a 31% year-on-year surge in March.

At $30467.32 million, the exports were 9.39% higher than the $27851.70 million clocked in FY24, official trade data recently released showed.

Pharma exports touched $30 billion for the first time. FY25 target was $29.38 billion, Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council Director General Raja Bhanu said.

March performance

The March performance stood out in a fiscal that will be remembered for the developments in the mainstay U.S. market even as India continued with efforts to tap into and build on the initial gains from new markets. If a shortage of generic prescription drugs in the U.S. raised hopes initially in the fiscal year, toward the year-end, the reciprocal 26% tariff President Donald Trump threatened to introduce had exporters scramble to ship more. Pharma, however, did not figure in the list of goods for which the levy was announced and put on hold for 90 days.

Pharma exports in March rose 31.21% YoY to $3681.51 million ($2805.71 million). The next best performance during the fiscal came in January when the exports rose 21.47% to $2590.88 million ($2132.92 million). May was the other month when growth touched double digits (10.63% to $2305.56 million), while February was the only month when it contracted, 1.52% to $2474.22 million).

Beyond the U.S. factor, the FY25 exports came in the face of geopolitical tensions, economic slowdown and logistical challenges.

Product category

Granular details for March are awaited, Pharmexcil DG said. Data for April-February show drug formulations and biologicals as a product category led with $20118.18 million and accounted for more than 75% of the total exports. This category expanded by nearly 9% YoY.

Bulk drugs and drug intermediates exports were next highest, during the 11 months, rising 1.40% to $4319.30 million. Though the third-largest exported category, among pharmaceutical products, value of vaccines exports declined 4.20% to $1043.76 million.

Export of surgicals rose 5.16% and the value of exports stood at $683.47 million. Ayush and Herbal products exports grew 6.17% to $620.97 million. Total pharma exports upto February this fiscal increased 6.95% to $26785.69 million.

U.S. top market

The U.S. that remains the largest market for years now maintained its pre-eminence accounting for more than one-third of Indian pharma exports. In value terms the increase in the exports to the U.S. was 14.29% at $8953.37 million ($7833.75 million). The U.K, Brazil, France and South Africa were others in the top five countries accounting together for less than 10.5% of the exports.

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South Africa figured in the list despite contraction in exports by 1.78%. During the 11 months of the fiscal, the top 25 countries-markets where the exports declined were United Arab Emirates (by 17.70%); Turkey (16%); Sri Lanka (14.60%); The Netherlands (13.79%), China (10.60%) and Belgium (7.37%). The decline in the exports was 3.80% to Mexico and 0.14% to Thailand, official data showed.

Top regions

Regionwise, NAFTA, Europe, Africa and LAC were the four major regions together accounting for 76% of India’s pharma exports. Of them NAFTA accounted for 36.60% with the exports increasing 14.06% to $9804.78 million.

Among regions where the exports declined were Africa (by 1.74%) and North East Asia (4.30%).