ANALYTICAL INDUSTRY MARKET IN INDIA
The Indian instrumentation market including
consumables and spares is estimated around $1 billion, with an annual growth
rate of above 10 percent.
India saw a major part of the analytical instrument industry moved into trading
and representing foreign manufacturers, except for a few in 1980. However, as
Indian economy grew since the 1990s fuelled by the economic liberation policies
of the government, and rapid globalization of the Indian economy, the market
opportunity became visible to the global players. Pharmaceuticals, life
sciences, petroleum, mines and minerals, metals, and food and beverages were few
of the distinct sectors that achieved global scales, and required to adopt best
practices for research and quality. This resulted in a shift in strategy for the
global players who had a reasonable representation of their products to
establish their own subsidiaries for not only providing sales and support but to
offer value add services like application support to the various verticals.
In the 1960s, a lot of work went into the development of analytical instrumentation mainly in the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) labs that were funded by the government. This was because of the technology isolation faced by India after the Chinese war and the "self reliance" objective thus set by the government.
Very few of the instrument technologies thus developed were ever commercialized. Later, dependence on foreign products grew because of non-availability of indigenous technologies. Most of the Indian instrument companies though initially started developing indigenous technologies, could not keep pace with technological advancements, as the support structure did not evolve. Hence they opted for technical tie-ups except for a couple of companies who continued to invest in in-house R&D.
The technologies discussed have been indigenously developed and successfully compete with imports addressing the low and mid range markets. Some of these products are being exported worldwide. A couple of the Indian companies have moved into high end product development and are also working with global players in co-development and manufacturing.
The instrument industry is technology intensive involving several disciplines of technology which include optics, fluidics, mechanics, precision engineering, materials, electronics (hardware and software), sensors, detectors, chemicals, product engineering and above all competent human resource. Backward and forward integration is very essential for any industry to grow and non-existence of this structure was a deterrent for the
India has a well established science and technology infrastructure under the CSIR, DAE, DoS and DRDO institutions and world-class academic institutions like IIT and IISc. Though a lot of funding went into these institutions the drawback was the poor interface between the industry, research institutions and academia because of lack of an integrated national instrument development program for indigenous instrument development. Very few of the technologies ever developed had commercial relevance.
However, the scenario is changing and we see an increased participation among the stakeholders.
In the 1990s with opening up of the economy, the country saw rapid economic growth coupled with freeing the market of all trade barriers. In 1998 India became the signatory to the WTO-IT agreement by which the duties on most of the analytical instruments had to come down to zero by 2005.
The Indian analytical instrument market including consumables and spares is estimated around $1 billion, with an annual growth rate of above 10 percent. It is estimated that this growth rate will continue for the coming years
Due to competitive pressures time and productivity are the biggest challenges in the laboratory today. A one stop shop which provides automation and networking of instruments leading to speed of analysis, meeting regulatory compliance and support has become the key for the customer.
Instrument technologies are by and large driven by the life science industry which requires products and technologies that address their dynamic needs for new drug discovery and regulatory compliance.
Opportunities for India
Globally the largest segments are the separation science and spectroscopy techniques. This pattern is similar in India also. The highest growth rate has been in the life science sector, which includes pharma, bio, proteinomics, genomics and clinical research related instrumentation.
In India the government and academia is still the largest buyer of analytical instruments, followed by the research and pharmaceutical industry. As the Indian GDP continues to grow at an average rate of 8 to 9 percent the demand for analytical instruments will continue to grow and eventually industry and research will become the largest buyers of analytical instruments.
Increased security concerns in India are leading to huge investments in laboratory instrumentation for forensic and explosive detections. Stringent hygiene standards are leading to increased investments in instruments for food and beverages and water analysis.
The instrument industry being multidisciplinary and driven by industry/application specific requirements requires manpower with technical skills. As India has a large pool of technical manpower it will give an edge for India-based industry.
The rapid economic growth and the competitive environment thus created coupled with stringent government regulations are forcing Indian industry to have world-class laboratory infrastructure. This environment is creating a huge opportunity for the instrument industry.
In the last few years a large number of foreign companies from various sectors have set up.