Indian healthcare market to hit $372 bn by 2022: Report

India's healthcare market may see threefold jump in value terms to USD 372 billion by 2022, driven by growing incidence of lifestyle diseases and rising demand for affordable healthcare delivery systems, according to a report. The report, prepared by Assocham and research firm RNCOS, said the value of the sector in 2016 stood at USD 110 billon and will see a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22 per cent. Besides, the medical devices market in India, which was valued at USD 4 billion as of 2016, is likely to cross USD 11 billion mark by 2022 on the back of growing geriatric population, uptick in medical tourism and gradual decline in cost of medical services, the survey noted. Growing lifestyle diseases, rising demand for affordable healthcare delivery systems due to increasing healthcare costs, emergence of telemedicine, rapid health insurance penetration, mergers and acquisitions helping to reach untapped markets and government initiatives are driving healthcare market in India, it said. With regard to the impact of GST on the pharmaceutical sector, the report said GST will streamline taxation structure as also lead to ease of doing business by minimising cascading effect of many taxes applied to a product, rationalise supply chain, enable flow of seamless tax credit, lower manufacturing cost and cost of technology and make healthcare affordable. "Increasing expenditure on research and development (R&D), rising collaborations between Indian and foreign companies, reduction in product approval time and other such factors are driving the growth of Indian pharmaceutical market," it noted.