India’s First Medical Device Park: A Portent of Future Growth?

In August 2016, India began construction on its first domestic medical device park. India has a robust domestic pharmaceutical sector, but its domestic medical device manufacturing sector remains very underdeveloped. Device imports comprise close to 70% of all devices used in India.

However, there have been recent promising developments for Indian medical device manufacturers.  In August 2016, the Indian parliament passed a national Good and Services Tax (GST), replacing an unwieldy system of state taxes. This should help bring down the costs for medical device manufacturers in India. Furthermore, over the past two years some import duties on foreign medical devices have been increased, making it more difficult for Western device companies to export to India. These policy shifts should lead to an increase in domestic manufacturing of devices. The combination of these developments will jump start India’s domestic medical device market and in the long run create competition for Western device manufacturers.