alt Hacker News>Hate to break your cherry, but that's all industries.
It's not binary where it either it is or it isn't but there's various levels to it and Pharma gets special privilege over industries like cars, phones or semiconductors, since it deals with people's lives.
> as Asian players in both China and India have largely disrupted the generics
Then why did I never took an Indian or Chinese made paracetamol, but all generics in my EU country I ever took from the pharmacy ware locally made? Meanwhile I can't buy a locally made laptop, smartphone, GPU, it's all Asian made goods.
> Then why did I never took an Indian or Chinese made paracetamol, but all generics in my EU country I ever took from the pharmacy ware locally made
Because it was synthesized using Chinese and Indian sourced "Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients" (APIs) [0], both of whom synthesize around 80% of all APIs required by European pharma manufacturers.
The EU is trying to rectify this, especially after COVID when India decided to stop all exports of APIs and pharmaceuticals to Europe in order to prioritize domestic production [1], but it still takes time (they started in 2021, and it'll probably take another 5-7 years to build the critical mass needed to rebuild a domestic ecosystem).
> Meanwhile I can't buy a locally made laptop, smartphone, GPU, it's all Asian made goods
Becuase, as I have kept elucidating on multiple occasions on this thread, the entire ecosystem for these goods simply does not exist in Europe, and no European member state is interested in opening their pocketbooks to subsidize manufacturers to move to Europe in order to begin manufacturing the intermediate parts needed.
Countries like those across ASEAN, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, the US, and India offer millions to billions of dollars in hard cash, land, tax subsidizes, or a mix of all 3 in order to attract or retain manufacturers. EU member states simply does not do the same for electronics. Some of them absolutely do so for biopharma (such as Denmark), but by and large they tend to be exceptions of the rule.
> Pharma gets special privilege over industries like cars, phones or semiconductors, since it deals with people's lives
Ime, Pharma PLIs and incentives are fairly comparable to those that would be provided to electronic industries as well. The same tax sops India gave to attract Apple to TN were similar to those that India gave Novartis and Bayer decades ago, and China has been using the same subsidy program it used to attract electronics manufacturing to attract and become a major player in the biopharma space.
[0] - https://pharmacia.pensoft.net/article/172383/
[1] - https://www.statnews.com/2021/05/05/india-vaccine-heist-shod...