An Examination of India's Pharmaceutical Industry Through the Lens of Dependency Theory
Dependency theory portrays certain countries as core countries and others as periphery countries. It portrays the relationship between the core and the periphery as a parasitic, and controlling, one. This paper examines global pharmaceuticals through the lens of dependency theory, which would predict that core countries try to exert control over the pharmaceutical industry in periphery countries through patents, licensing, capital controls or other means. They also extend their activities to conducting pharmaceutical testing of dangerous drugs in Third World (or periphery) countries. Evidence suggest that there is a history of major multinational pharmaceutical companies, which are headquartered in developed countries, monopolizing life-saving drugs and marketing unnecessary medical consumer products in periphery third world countries. The case of India, however, took a different discourse that cannot be fully explained within the framework of dependency theory; the Indian pharmaceutical industry has witnessed an impressive growth over the past several decades.