MUMBAI, Aug. 27 -- The number that changed how fund managers priced India's pharmaceutical sector in 2026 was not a revenue figure. It was a US FDA inspection clearance rate.

Through the first seven months of FY27, Indian manufacturing facilities received US FDA establishment inspection reports at the fastest pace in five years, with clearance rates running above 80 percent on first inspection - a metric the industry had spent the better part of a decade trying to recover after a wave of warning letters and import alerts that began in 2015. The inspection data matters because it is the operational prerequisite for what has become the sector's primary re-rating thesis: India as a contract development and manufacturing organisation hub for...