|
Indian medtech & pharma cos expansion undermined by H-1B curbs & US tariffs
|
|
Nandita Vijayasimha, Bengaluru
October 08 , 2025
|
|
|
India’s medical technology and pharmaceutical companies view recent US policy measures such as tightening of the H-1B visa programme, the HIRE Act, and increasing tariffs as potential obstacles to cross-border collaboration.
Industry chiefs argue that such moves could hinder infrastructure development, restrict access to global talent, and slow innovation by limiting skilled workforce mobility and increasing operational costs.
Kamal Karanth, co-founder, Xpheno, a specialist staffing firm noted that the medtech sector is a high-specialist space that draws on talent from a wide array of sectors and adjacent domains. Specialists drawn from healthcare, wellness, pharma, regulatory, finance, software and engineering are part of the talent ecosystem of medtech players. Moves like the H-1B, HIRE Act or potential tariff on services will directly restrict the access to such specialists and also sharply increase cost of operations.
With collaborative R&D as a core fiber, medtech relies a lot on working seamlessly across borders and with strong global expansion footprints. Challenges with H-1B will restrict enterprise & talent mobility and also hinder access to critical high-end infrastructure necessary to carry out product and process development, he added.
Further, the collaborative nature of engineering and R&D in the medtech space requires unrestricted access to global talent and infrastructure. Developing a self-sufficient ecosystem of talent within a certain geography will be a challenge and one that's nearly impossible to execute. There can hence be no near-term fix or shift in the talent or investment strategies for the sector. The long-term shift, if any, will be pathways to increase self-sufficiency in the talent ecosystem and restricted external dependency in R&D. As said, this is ideal and aspirational, but structurally difficult to design and execute. The fix would hence be to find a mid-path that's financially viable for the sector to source talent and maintain access to collaborative specialist skills, said Karanth.
Hari Kiran Chereddi, MD & CEO, HRV Pharma & NHG Pharma noted that 100% tariff might not find India's generic exports directly, but it issues a clear message that the US desires pharmaceutical manufacturing closer to home.
For Indian pharma players venturing into complex generics, biosimilars, and patented products, this is a serious threat of margin compression as well as market access barriers, said Chereddi adding that it emphasises the need to diversify markets, create resilience in supply chains, and also to adopt active diplomacy to secure India's pharma leadership.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TOPICS
|
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Maharashtra, has issued a public advisory urging citizens to report any misleadi ...
|
|
|
|
|