1. Introduction

The chapter begins with a brief survey of the recent macroeconomic performance of India’s economy. It then examines the opportunities that India has in the context of the current pandemic where an emphasis has been placed on the health industry. India has considerable technological capability in three subsectors of the health industry. These are in the design and manufacture of vaccines, therapeutic drugs and in medical devices of various sorts. The main advantages the country has in these are frugal innovations in these technologies so that the country can actually become a hub for health industry, thus making it truly a pharmacy, not just to the developing world, but also to the developed economies as well. The impediments to achieving this role are then discussed in terms of financing such frugal innovations and the institutional support read as the TRIPS compliant intellectual property regime. The chapter also discusses the structure of the book and its unique features as well. It thus provides a context to the specific issues that are discussed in the subsequent fifteen chapters.