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NEW DELHI – India has been taking measures to wean off dependence on China for ingredients that go into making a variety of drugs, including antibiotics.

But three years after the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains from China, India is still a long way off from reducing imports of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) chemicals responsible for the therapeutic effect of drugs, noted industry experts.

Instead, India imported APIs and drugs worth 352.49 billion rupees (S$5.7 billion) in 2021-22, up from 285.29 billion rupees the previous year, according to government figures.

In the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, construction has started on a pharmaceutical park spread over 362 ha, while in the western state of Gujarat, work has started on a similar park spread over 809 ha.

Land for a third park is being acquired in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

The parks, which are expected to be ready in two years time, are in addition to the government giving Production Linked Incentives (PLIs) worth US$2 billion (S$2.6 billion) for manufacturing 53 APIs such as levofloxacin, an antibiotic used to treat pneumonia, for which India is heavily dependent on China.

Manufacturing has already started for about three dozen APIs like para-aminophenol, a raw material for paracetamol, but volumes have yet to reach a point where imports can be cut, noted industry experts.

The realisation of the benefit of the (PLI) scheme will take time as the incubation time is high, said Mr Sudarshan Jain, secretary general of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance.

Under the PLI scheme, different incentives are given for different products over a period of time. For instance, products that require fermentation, a process to create microorganisms for antibiotics and others, will get 20 per cent of the total cost to push up manufacturing between FY24-27.

On the pharmaceutical parks, Mr Jain said: India aims to create clusters for developing an ecosystem for bulk drug manufacturers. These clusters will be of great help as they facilitate faster clearance, efficiency and product development initiatives.

India is the biggest supplier of generic drugs in the world, meeting more than half of global demand for many vaccines. Still, the US$42 billion sector is heavily dependent on China for APIs.

According to a government report, India imports about 68 per cent of its APIs from China as it is a cheaper option than manufacturing them domestically.

And the dependence on China for certain life-saving antibiotics such as penicillin and azithromycin, used to treat bacterial infections such as bronchitis, is about 80 per cent to 90 per cent, according to industry data. More On This Topic India ready to export fever drugs to China amid Covid-19 surge India probes Uzbekistans claim that 18 children died after taking India-made cough syrup Mr Deepak Jotwani, assistant vice-president and sector head of corporate ratings at ICRA, an India-based credit rating agency, assessed that dependence will go down only over a four- to five-year period.

He noted that for some drugs like the entire requirement of certain fermentation-based APIs like penicillin and erythromycin are being sourced from China.

And then there are some APIs that are made only in China like Penicillin Gand 7-aminocephalosporanic acid, the key raw materials required for manufacturing cephalosporins, used for making certain antibiotics.

For real impact on reducing imports from China, industryexperts said the requirement was to get middle-level pharma firms to increase manufacturing and push innovation.

A majority of firms that have applied for incentives under the PLI scheme are major companies like Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and Dr. Reddys Laboratories.

The volume drivers from the middle-tier players are still not very well engaged, said Mr Naveen Kulkarni, chief executive of biotransformation company Quantumzyme, on the PLI scheme.

One of the primary reasons could be that the high-value products requiring fermentation capabilities are received sceptically by mid-level players, who are not willing to move out of their comfort zone, he said.

He noted that the governments incentive scheme, which runs for six years, could also be a deterrent and perceived as risky by the mid-level players, who are enjoying a better bottom line with extremely low risk. More On This Topic Critical tuberculosis drug set to be cheaper after India removes J&Js patent protection India awaits WHO information on any cough syrup link to Gambia deaths Import dependence is expected to remain high in the interim because domestic demand is expected to increase, even as India is set to overtake China as the nation with the worlds largest population at 1.4 billion people

It will, however, take time for these local manufacturing capacities to develop large-scale outputs. In the meantime, rising domestic demand for drug intermediates is likely to preserve the import dependence on China, said Dr Amitendu Palit, a senior research fellow and research lead (trade and economics) at the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore.

Firms that have started increasing capacity include biopharmaceutical company Biocon.

Our immunosuppressant facility in Visakhapatnam and peptides facility in Bengaluru… are expected to go live in FY24, with more projects in the pipeline, said Mr Siddharth Mittal, managing director and chief executive of Biocon.

Without going into details, a spokesman for pharmaceutical firm Glenmark, said: As a beneficiary, we have enhanced our development efforts on complex products as well as towards increasing our manufacturing capacity under the (PLI) scheme.

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How Britain’s most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective’s talk

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How Britain's most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective's talk

Britain’s most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch.

Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink’s-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials.

Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink’s-Mat Gold in 2019, said: “I go outside and they say ‘he’s here’ and I say ‘who’s here’ and they say that table over there in the corner, that’s Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head.”

Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink’s-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold.

After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron.

“They said what are we going to do?” said Mr Brown.

“I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives.”

Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown
Image:
Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown. Pic: Robert Mulhern

Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink’s-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery.

Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery.

He said: “He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it.”

The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole.

Read more:
What happened to the Brink’s-Mat gold?

Kenneth Noye and Stephen Cameron
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Kenneth Noye, left, and Stephen Cameron

Mr Brown, 86, said: “I went over to him and said ‘thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in’, but I don’t believe you’ve turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer.

“And he said ‘I want to make sure you don’t say I’ve been dealing drugs’ and I said ‘I’ve never said that Kenny’.”

The retired detective told Noye he wasn’t going to change his presentation just because he was there.

“He said ‘mate, I wouldn’t expect you to and I’ll come up [on stage] if you want me to’.

“Can you think how he’s turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that.”

The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I’d been told about the meeting.

A series of podcast documentaries from Sky News, telling compelling and unheard real life stories from around the UK.
Image:
A Sky News podcast told the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist in 2019

I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983.

“It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better,” said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean.

He said he chatted to one of the show’s writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more.

“They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I’m just very sad that that is what people will believe.

“And I couldn’t work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops.”

He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.

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L.A. routed 18-1 in worst loss at Dodger Stadium

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L.A. routed 18-1 in worst loss at Dodger Stadium

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers suffered their worst loss ever in Dodger Stadium, an 18-1 blowout at the hands of the Houston Astros on Friday night in the series opener of a matchup between division leaders.

The 17-run loss marked the Dodgers’ largest margin of defeat at home since the team moved to Dodger Stadium in 1962, and the franchise’s worst home loss since July 3, 1947, when Brooklyn lost 19-2 to the New York Giants.

Jose Altuve homered twice while reaching base five times and driving in five runs for the Astros, who held the defending World Series champion Dodgers to six hits including Will Smith‘s solo homer.

“That was one you want to flush as soon as possible,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I don’t think there were many positives from this night.”

Dodgers fans relentlessly booed Altuve throughout his at-bats, chanting, “Cheater! Cheater!” He’s one of two players, along with Lance McCullers Jr., remaining from Houston’s 2017 team that beat the Dodgers in the World Series. It later came out that the Astros were stealing signs with the help of video and relaying pitches to batters by banging on a trash can.

The AL West-leading Astros scored 10 runs in the sixth, highlighted by Victor Caratini‘s grand slam and Altuve’s three-run shot. It was the most runs given up in an inning by the Dodgers since April 23, 1999, when they allowed 11 to St. Louis.

McCullers (2-3) allowed one run and four hits in six innings of his second start since returning from a sprained right foot. He struck out four.

Isaac Paredes hit his first career leadoff homer on the first pitch of the game from rookie Ben Casparius. Altuve doubled and scored on Christian Walker‘s RBI single for a 2-0 lead.

Jake Meyers doubled leading off the third and scored on Altuve’s 14th homer. Rookie Cam Smith doubled and scored on Walker’s 417-foot shot halfway up the left-field pavilion to cap four straight hits given up by Casparius and extend Houston’s lead to 6-1.

“I don’t think Ben was good tonight,” Roberts said. “It seemed like they were on everything he threw up there.”

The Astros broke it open in the sixth. Smith had a bases-loaded RBI single, reliever Noah Davis hit Walker with two strikes on him to force in a run and Caratini hit his slam with no outs. Meyers added an RBI single, and Altuve hit his second homer of the night.

Casparius allowed six runs and nine hits in three innings and struck out three.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Raleigh ties M’s record with 35 HRs before break

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Raleigh ties M's record with 35 HRs before break

SEATTLE — Cal Raleigh hit his 34th and 35th home runs to set a career high and match Ken Griffey Jr.’s Seattle record for homers before the All-Star break, helping the Mariners beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-0 on Friday.

Raleigh, the major league leader in home runs, turned on a fastball from Bailey Falter (6-4) in the first inning and walloped it well past the wall in left. The exit velocity on the two-run shot was logged at 115.2 mph, per Statcast, making it the hardest-hit ball of his career.

Raleigh topped his previous career high for homers, set last season, in the sixth with a solo shot that chased Falter. The Mariners mustered only one other hit off the left-hander, but it was also a home run courtesy of Randy Arozarena in the fourth inning.

Raleigh’s 35 homers are tied for the fifth most in MLB history before the All-Star break (since 1933), matching Griffey in 1998 and Luis Gonzalez in 2001. Barry Bonds holds the record with 39 at the break in 2001.

Raleigh said he was honored to tie Griffey, whom he called the face of the Mariners.

“To be mentioned with that name, somebody that’s just iconic, a legend, first-ballot Hall of Famer, I’m just blessed,” Raleigh said. “Trying to do the right thing and trying to keep it rolling. If I can try to be like that guy, it’s a good guy to look up to.”

Raleigh is on pace to hit 65 home runs this season, which would break New York Yankees star Aaron Judge‘s American League record of 62, set in 2022.

Manager Dan Wilson, who was a teammate of Griffey Jr.’s in 1998, tried to put Raleigh’s fast start to 2025 in perspective.

“It’s remarkable. It feels like he hits a home run every game, that’s what it feels like,” Wilson said. “And I can remember feeling it as a player, that [Griffey] just felt like he hit a home run every day. Again, that’s the consistency that [Raleigh] has shown. It hasn’t been a streak where he has hit a bunch of home runs in a short amount of time. It’s been kind of 10 per month.”

A switch-hitter, Raleigh has more home runs as a left-handed hitter and as a right-handed hitter than anyone else on the Mariners: He has 21 from the left side and 14 from the right. Arozarena ranks second on Seattle with 13 homers this season.

The Mariners play eight more games before the All-Star break.

The Associated Press and ESPN Research contributed to this report.

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