The syringe and needle manufacturing industry is in for a tough year, amid tepid demand as the rate of Covid vaccination drops. Syringe makers have started to repurpose their machines to produce standard disposable syringes for curative healthcare drug delivery and are aiming to penetrate overseas untapped markets.

Rajiv Nath, managing director at Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices (HMD), said his company has reduced production of syringes drastically. “We have huge un-lifted stocks – around 90 million AD (auto disposable) syringes and 20 million 1 ml disposable syringes – that we hope will be dispatched by April. These were made for Unicef, government of India and PAHO (Pan American Health Organization). The orders got rescheduled by over a year,” he said.

Production of AD immunisation syringes at its plants has fallen from 4.5-5.0 million units per day a year ago to 500,000-600,000 now. “We are repurposing our machines to produce standard disposable syringes for curative healthcare drug delivery and are looking to penetrate overseas markets,” Nath said.

India in FY22 exported more than 4.13 billion syringes with and without needles, while also importing 7.96 billion syringes. For the nine months ended December 31, 2022, imports were 6.17 billion syringes, up from 6.06 billion a year earlier, said Nath, who is also president of the All India Syringe and Needle Manufacturers Association (AISNMA).