Shot In The Arm

Zaynich is proof that Indian pharma wants to move up the value chain. Govt can help with laws and incentives

Over 80 years, ever since mass production of penicillin began, antibiotics have saved more than 20cr lives. Thanks to them, we live 23 years longer now, on average. But overuse and abuse of these life-saving drugs have enabled some germs to resist them. That’s called AMR – antimicrobial resistance – and it’s a big problem. AMR is estimated to have killed 12.7L people globally in 2019, and could kill 1cr a year by 2050. To prevent that, we need more powerful antibiotics. And Zaynich, a new drug made by Indian pharma firm Wockhardt, is just that.

Zaynich is also a rare moment in India’s pharma story. This is the first USFDA approved NCE or ‘new chemical entity’, fully designed, developed and commercialised by an Indian firm. Earlier, Indian firm Orchid Pharma had invented enmetazobactam, a powerful drug to fight AMR, but it had outsourced human trials. Regardless, enmetazobactam also got USFDA approval in 2024, and Orchid reacquired rights over it last Oct. That’s two aces for India, with potentially billions of dollars in revenue. Wockhardt estimates Zaynich alone could earn up to $1.5bn a year.

An excellent start, but what’s next? The good news is that Indian pharma firms have several more NCEs in the pipeline. While our generics make headlines with exports and revenues, there’s a whole drawer of innovative products taking shape. In fact, it started in 2005, when India modified patent laws to cover product innovation in pharma, rather than process innovation alone. But is it fast enough? China, another generics giant, is now a leading pharma innovator. A Goldman Sachs report says about 25% of innovative drug candidates now originate in China, and 46% of NCEs that entered human trials between Jan and June 2025 were Chinese.

Can India do it with its admittedly scarcer resources? In 1920, Indian scientist Upendranath Brahmachari, working by the light of a kerosene lamp at night, invented urea stibamine, which raised the survival rate of kala-azar patients from 10% to 90%. So, the capability of Indian scientists is not in doubt. Regulatory aid – like the 2005 amendment – can help.