https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/S...s-force-U.S.-to-look-to-China-for-vital-drugs I have never understood why importing drugs from India was a good idea. However, they are the source of half the active pharmaceutical ingredients and 40% of all generics sold in the US. Quality control problems are not limited to obscure small companies. The article describes problems at Dr. Reddy and Ranbaxy, major suppliers that make drugs that I take.
If the quality and safety of pharmaceuticals from India are too unreliable to import into the U.S., I find it laughable that people think China would be more trustworthy. I know a Chinese acquaintance who bought a huge number of vitamin pills in the U.S. to bring to his family in China. I thought that was interesting. Apparently the Chinese do not even trust the vitamin companies in their own nation. Especially after the infant formula milk scandal (in 2008 ). Chinese companies are notorious for doing anything to cut corners. It's so ironic that the U.S. imports so much from China, since everything is so much cheaper in China. But vitamin pills are one of the things Chinese prefer to buy from the U.S., even though Chinese pills are much cheaper. Guess what the main Chinese pharmaceutical export to the U.S. is. Illegal fentanyl. Apparently the Chinese Communist Party doesn't seem to care that much. Anything to help increase the value of their total exports. And they sort of see it as "revenge" against the West for the Opium Wars (1839-1860 where Great Britain forced the Chinese to allow imports of opium that wrecked havoc on Chinese society so Europe could maintain a trade balance while importing goods from China).
This also says a lot about the society in India and China. I mean the culture, values, ethics, and average levels of corruption. People don't understand that business norms in countries like the U.S., Canada or Germany are very different from how things work in India or China. Unethical business practices are endemic to these countries. and the culture and society ends up having very real economic effects. In my opinion this has big implications for immigration policy, but that's another story.
I believe we used to have a president that warned us about this sort of thing. Of course he was called racist and xenophobic as a result. https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3170
So India's pharma makers aren't quite as adept at regulatory capture as the US's pharma makers. I consider that to be favoring India...
It can also be pointed out that the pharmaceutical industry is one of the last industries in the U.S. that is still being protected from foreign competition. Mainly this is through high regulatory burdens, with the stringent pharmaceutical regulations unique to the U.S. and non-standardized. You'll notice that all the occupations and industries in the U.S. which are the most lucrative are the ones which are protected from foreign competition, and thus have not been outsourced yet. People talk about free and open trade bringing about "innovation" and lowering prices, and that may be true, but what types of jobs are going to be left in the U.S. if all of that is outsourced to another country where things are far cheaper? This seems like just a continuation of de-industrialization. Furthermore, the argument about "innovation" is mostly disingenuous, in my view, since the U.S. is indisputably already the heart of world innovation in the pharmaceutical field. Indeed, one part of the reason that pharmaceutical prices are higher in the U.S. than other countries like Canada and in Europe is because U.S. companies invest a larger portion of their profits in research and development. When they try to sell to Canada and Europe, those countries use their monopoly power to suppress prices. So as a result, companies have to recoup most of their costs for research and development in the U.S. market. That means that U.S. consumers are the ones paying the development of new pharmaceuticals and innovation, even though people in other countries benefit. I hope people are not too stupid to realize this, but basic economics tells us that there would be less new pharmaceutical research and development if the U.S. used the same tactic as these other countries to try to price fix. Why bother investing in a new innovative product when there is less profit opportunity to be made? Research and development of pharmaceuticals are extremely expensive. A big chunk of the profits end up funding more research. Although we could argue maybe it should be the role of government to fund this research.
The US pharma industry benefits from huge amounts of Federally funded university research in medicine and biochemistry. This is probably a bigger factor than US pharma companies investing more of their profits in research and development. They do spend more in regulatory compliance and marketing to bring drugs to market.
