Mumbai, Feb. 24 -- India's pharmaceutical companies, having conquered generics, must now pursue partnerships, collaborations and licensing deals to drive innovation at scale, industry executives said on Tuesday.

During a panel discussion at the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance's Global Pharmaceutical Quality Summit in Mumbai, Dilip Shanghvi, founder and executive chairman of the country's largest drugmaker, Sun Pharma, said that the industry has been taking tentative steps towards innovation. "People are making investments to create capacity within their organization to manage innovation, so that at a certain point of time, we can become an equally important player globally in terms of innovative products," he said.

"But I still don't see...