The Chinese Cancer Fix
5/10/202613 min
A quiet revolution is underway in Indian oncology. Chinese-origin cancer drugs, brought to India through a growing number of pharma partnerships, are dramatically cutting the cost of immunotherapy — making treatment accessible to patients who previously had no options. Doctors are prescribing them, patients are responding well, and Indian companies — from Glenmark to Dr Reddy’s to Intas — are signing billion-dollar deals to expand access further. Western immunotherapy can cost up to five lakh rupees per session. Chinese-origin alternatives are bringing that down to fifty thousand. This episode explores how the India-China pharma axis is reshaping who gets treated, and how.
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First 90 secondsAnirban Chaudhuri· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to ET Deep Dive, where we bring you The Economic Times best reported stories in audio. Today's episode is based on Vikas Dandekar and Rekha Bhattacharya's report on how Chinese origin cancer drugs brought to India through a growing web of India-China pharmaceutical partnerships are quietly dismantling the price wall that has long kept life-saving immunotherapy out of reach for most Indian patients. It's Sunday, the tenth of May. I'm Anirban Chaudhuri. This is the Morning Brief. [upbeat music] For Vijay Patil, a cancer specialist at Mumbai's PD Hinduja Hospital, it was just another painful day. A seventy-two-year-old patient from Dahanu had come to him with advanced small cell lung cancer. The standard drug marketed by a multinational company was beyond the patient's reach. Patil was in an awkward position, but there was an alternative. He prescribed a newly approved lower cost immunotherapy