New Delhi, Sept. 29 -- Only a sliver of India's pharmaceutical exports to the US, placed at roughly $10.5 billion in 2024-25, appears to face the 100% tariff hurdle likely to be erected this week by American President Donald Trump.

Since the vast bulk of what we export are generic drugs, rather than patented or branded ones, this is not a crisis for our pharma industry. The new tariff's exact targets await clarity, but unless the term "branded" somehow gets stretched to cover trademark-bearing products that command no premium for intellectual property, which would imply a muddled policy, the impact will be confined to very few Indian companies.

That such firms have been ahead of the pack on innovation is ironic, but global demand for un...