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Let me start today by sharing a few snippets from reports and stories spanning nearly a decade.
“India remains heavily import-dependent, with US$8.2 billion in imports, and 80% to 85% of medical devices sourced internationally.”—EY, 2024
“Imports constitute an estimated 75% of the medical device sales in India.”—The Ken, 2023
“Over two-thirds of India’s medical devices are imported, and the majority of those are from the US.”—The Ken, 2018
“Indian manufacturers haven’t cracked the medtech market, which, understandably, is tough, with 75% imports dominating the business.”—The Ken, 2016
I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I’m highlighting the market share that India’s medical devices manufacturers have in their own home market. But, that’s not the point I want to draw your attention to. Instead, it is about how hard they’ve been trying to get the Indian government, hospitals, and consumers to buy and support medical devices made in the country. And how they’ve failed—over and over again.
This Monday, however, saw a small departure from this frustrating trajectory. Because after a long wait, the Indian government is finally moving to operationalise the Export Promotion Council for Medical Devices (EPCMD), an agency whose only objective is to boost medical devices exports from India.
In a press release, Rajiv Nath, the face of the Association of Indian Manufacturers of Medical Devices (AiMED), hailed the move, calling it “a historic and proud moment for the Indian medical devices industry”.
Now, no one knows if Indian hospitals will start buying more medical devices from local manufacturers anytime soon. I have already written about why the Make-in-India narrative has had limited success in convincing Indian doctors and patients to look outside the country’s borders for quality gear.
…but consider things from a patient’s or surgeon’s perspective—would you rather choose a manufacturer who started producing knee implants locally a year ago or a decades-old international medical device maker?
But India’s export game in the space is nothing to scoff at. According to a 2024 Ernst & Young report, Indian medtech exports reached US$3.8 billion in FY24, with the US as the primary market. And Indian medtech device-makers’ global market share is expected to grow significantly over the next couple of decades.
This is no minor success for the Make in India project. And the rolling out of EPCMD was only expected to improve Indian medtech makers’ chances overseas.
Until, that is, US President Donald Trump doused the AiMED’s celebrations by announcing a slew of reciprocal tariffs on Thursday. The US is India’s biggest export market for the sector, after all.
Here’s Nath expressing his disappointment:
First, imposing a 26% tariff on medical devices imported from India will be a sharp escalation from previous tariffs. “Historically, tariffs on medical devices from India ranged between 0 and 6%, mostly close to zero. This is also higher than tariffs charged on medical devices imported by India from the US, which have historically ranged between 0 and 7.5%, mostly closer to 7.5%,” said Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator, Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD).
Trump’s new tariffs are by no means universally, or even significantly, popular. The Economist, for instance, has critiqued the move and the intentions behind it in several pieces over the past week.
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