Paper short abstract:

This paper will chart the political and moral economies and global ambitions represented by two versions of the Indian corporate medi-scape, represented by Cipla and Ranbaxy.

Paper long abstract:

The trajectories of pharmaceuticals in India's urban centres have been transformed since Indira Gandhi unleashed the generics industry by removing product patents. In 2005, product patents returned to an Indian pharmaceuticals industry that was not only dominating the Indian market but also exporting its products to the global heartland, taking over European and US companies in the process. Big Indian Pharma - like Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's and Cipla - display Janus-faced characteristics. On the one hand, they are providing employment for millions and ensuring that essential drugs at affordable prices are available to the vast population of the sub-continent. On the other, as exemplars of the world of the Indian corporates, they want to join the rich man's club. Their successes are trumpeted by the Indian government, and are part of the imagined goal of a hi-tech knowledge-based economy. Their factories and corporate headquarters appear as futuristic mediscapes, peopled by global citizens.

Here I draw on material collected in the project 'Tracing Pharmaceuticals in South Asia', which followed three drugs from their urban roots to their urban and rural consumers. I focus on the similarities and contrasts between two iconic companies: Ranbaxy and Cipla. Ranbaxy is the archetypal, no-nonsense, go-getting business where dynastic squabbles led to a division of the company and the creation of a corporate hospital chain. Cipla is a quintessentially Nehruvian company which has challenged patent-holders and supplied generic medicines to sufferers from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. It remains under the control of the son of its founder. The paper explores the significance of the contrasts between these business models.