Indians Knew About Vaccines Since 380 B.C: Dr Sajjan Yadav

The pharma industry and the vaccines have played a crucial role in India’s development journey so far, and it has tremendous potential for another 25 years, and will sustain the growth trajectory as it is doing currently.

The Indian pharma industry which was worth only 10 crores in 1948 has now become a two lakh crore industry, and the world knows it as the pharmacy of the world. We are also known as the epicenter of production of great volumes of vaccines at affordable prices. India produces 62 per cent of the world’s vaccines and 77 per cent of that production gets exported. 

Dr Sajjan Yadav, Additional Secretary, Department Of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, and Author of a recently published book ‘India’s Vaccine Growth Story: From Cowpox To Vaccine Maitri’ gave a keynote address at the 6th edition of BW Healthcare World’s Excellence Summit and Awards and said “Around two thousand years before the world’s first vaccine was discovered Indian knew how to generate immunity against the dreaded Smallpox, and we had our method since 380 B.C, which was known as variolation.”

Dr Yadav further said that India now needs to move from volumes to value as there are now high value vaccines which are coming in the market for many diseases, but so far we are not tapping into that potential. And with the advent of technology the entry barriers to vaccine development is coming down, so this provides a great opportunity for India.