Indian pharma market posts growth of 13.5 per cent: IMS Health

The pharmaceutical market was reported at Rs 6883 crores for the month of July 2013, with a growth of 13.5%. July 2013 has witnessed an excellent market performance by the pharmaceutical industry, registering all around healthy growths, be it acute or chronic therapies, local companies or MNCs. Of course challenges will always remain, the most imminent will be the implementation of DPCO 2013. According to IMS Health, while the bigger pharma companies would take the major brunt of the erosion due to those drugs under the NLEM, they would be able to mitigate some of the drop in profits by higher volumes due to greater market reach and brand value.

The market has kicked off second half of the year emphatically with the market growth rebounding strongly after a rather subdued first half. This upsurge in sales for the month of July 2013 is in line with expectations, as July had a robust monsoon resulting in strong growth of 14.6 per cent in acute segment. Chronic segment has continued its double digit growth at 10.7 per cent.

Improvement in macro factors (forecasts of favourable monsoons, clarity on pricing policy, improved economic growth through second half of the year), will result into progressive improvement in the pharma market and thus result into a growth between 11-13 per cent in the FY 2013, as forecasted in the IMS Market Prognosis report. For the period MAT July 2013, the pharma market was reported at Rs 75,542 crores, with a growth of 10.8 per cent, over the same period last year.

Leading corporations performance

The Top-10 corporations for the month of July 2013 were as follows:

For the month of July 2013, Sun, Alkem, Mankind and Pfizer were the fastest growing corporations among the Top 10 companies. Among the Top 20 companies, Aristo Pharma (23.5 per cent), Glenmark (21.5 per cent) and Alkem (23.3 per cent) were the fastest growing companies for the month of July 13. For the period MAT July 2013, USV (21.9 per cent), Macleods Pharma (18.8 per cent) and Sun Pharma (16.8 per cent) were the fastest growing companies. In fact, while the Top 10 ranked companies combined grew by11.2 per cent in July 2013, the next 10 ranked companies grew by 24 per cent.

There were a few changes in the Top 10 company ranking for the month of July 2013. While Alkem and Macleods moved up one rank, Ranbaxy and Sanofi declined by one rank. For the month, we see that local companies are growing relatively stronger at 15 per cent; however, MNCs have posted 9.8 per cent growth.

Anti-infective segment has recorded strong 15.4 per cent growth. Respiratory segment has overtaken anti-diabetics continues to be the fastest growing therapy for the month of July 2013 (31.2 per cent). Dermatology segment also recorded strong growth of 15.7 per cent. Led by the strong onset of monsoons all across the country, acute therapies grew much higher than chronic segment.

Kumar Hinduja, Sr Manager Business Development & Strategy, IMS Health India said, “IMS Health has been investing significantly over the past year on improving its capabilities, offerings and services in India. We have also carried out an extensive country-wide census of physicians and chemists in 120 cities, wherein IMS have census information of over three lakh doctors and one lakh chemists. The census information will be a key tool for big pharma and mid-scale pharma companies to revisit their physician access models and optimise their resources and thus deliver a robust growth in the second half of 2013.

Leading brands performance

EP News Bureau – Mumbai