"Asia’s pharmaceutical growth spurt comes at an opportune time, as deeper structural shifts in the global drug market undermine the West’s traditional edge. Over the last 10 years, patents have begun to expire on some of big pharma’s most profitable drugs, sapping revenue needed to produce and maintain profits from high-value products. Meanwhile, there has been an enormous growth in emerging markets where cheaper generic drugs are in high demand. These trends are forcing the West’s pharmaceutical giants to diversify toward generic production, where they lack the advantage of IP protections. Now they must compete with well-established generics manufacturers in countries like India and Thailand who are free to produce and sell their own versions of newly “off-patent” drugs at a fraction of the price. Asia’s pharmaceutical companies are in a favorable position to compete in the increasingly lucrative generics market while expanding into higher-value products on the back of the pandemic as big pharma’s portfolio of these products shrinks."

https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/covid-19-is-reshaping-global-pharmaceutical-competition-to-asias-benefit/