The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden embraced a plan from India’s government last year to edge China out of its position as a leader in making ingredients for generic pharmaceuticals sold in the U.S., but a new report shows that many of those ingredients are likely still coming from China.
America’s reliance on China for drug ingredients has raised alarm bells in Congress. House committees will hold two hearings Tuesday on drug shortages and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s foreign inspection program, which has seen a big drop in visits to Chinese factories over the last few years due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report put together ahead of the hearings by the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a trade organization pushing for tax breaks for domestic manufacturing, showed that India-based Aurobindo Pharma gets about 55% of its raw materials for ingredients from China. Aurobindo is a bellwether for the industry: It supplies the most generic drugs by volume to the U.S., and its $3.1 billion in 2023 revenue was second-highest among Indian drugmakers, data shows. The company’s 2022-23 annual report said it has "a high dependence on the China market” for materials and ingredients used to make drugs.