India’s pharmaceutical industry is growing at a CAGR of 13-14 per cent and is estimated to reach US $26 billion by 2016. At the same time, the total health care market is estimated to reach US $130 billion, with an CAGR of 13-16 per cent. In this rapidly expanding market, there are many opportunities for hospitals, drug manufacturers, medical device organisations and health insurance providers to grow and optimise their existing resources.
However, the lack of robust and meaningful data is one of the main challenges that stakeholders across the healthcare industry face in India. The rapid development of technology, diagnostics equipments and treatments, coupled with people living longer and requiring more medical support will increasingly require healthcare stakeholders to access to reliable and granular market intelligence in order to make more informed and better decisions, and to ultimately achieve better healthcare outcomes.
In response to these emerging needs, IMS Health has taken the initiative to conduct a comprehensive census covering 75 per cent of the Indian healthcare market, capturing insights and information from: 3.5 lakh doctors, 1.15 lakh chemists, 14,000 hospitals and 120 cities. The information gathered in this census will include the specialisation range of doctors, pharma and non-pharma sales, employee details for chemists, and hospital classification, size and equipment. The census will also track the use of technology across doctors, chemists and hospitals while capturing the location of all healthcare players on an interactive map based on GPS coordinates.
The need for such an offering is apparent. According to Kumar Hinduja, Sr Director – Strategy IMS Health India, “We get a lot of requests from clients for the effective measurement and deployment of their sales force resources. All of these clients share the same concern – the lack of robust data to assist in optimal decision making. Hence, IMS India has taken the leadership of conducting a national healthcare census, which is the first and the largest of its kind. The ultimate aim of this report is to help stakeholders across the healthcare continuum expand their knowledge and understanding of the Indian market. For the government, it can support the design and development of policy frameworks that improve healthcare delivery and access; for pharma companies it can improve their sales force efficiency by enabling them to identify optimal deployment strategies; for hospitals the information can help strengthen recruitment efforts and even get the right information to upgrade their equipment; and finally, retail pharmacy chains can use the census to more efficiently and effectively plan their growth strategy. In sum – IMS expects this census to help make the healthcare system in India run more intelligently.”
This information will be available as by the end of May, 2013.
EP News Bureau – Mumbai