Indian Pharma sector marks 11.3% in January

Mumbai: India’s Rs79,000 crore pharmaceuticals market has begun the year 2014 with an encouraging note after a disappointing performance in 2013. The market posted a growth of 11.3% at Rs6678 crore in the month of January over the same period last year, according to research data released by IMS Health India, the drug market researcher, for the month of January.

The industry has overcome the hurdles in mid-2013 following the implementation of drug price control order and it has showed strong resilience and recovery in the last three months, posting a growth of 12.2%, said IMS Health in its latest report released on Saturday.

“The above normal winter conditions prevailing across the country continued to drive growth in January, also. Acute therapies which contribute to over 70% of the market registered a robust double-digit growth, for the third consecutive month,” said Kumar Hinduja, senior director, Strategy Planning and Business Development, at IMS Health India.

Going forward, we expect the India market to pick up and maintain this momentum, and register a CAGR of 12%, for the period 2012-17, he added.

Four drug makers—Macleods Pharma Ltd, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Alkem Laboratories Ltd and Cipla Ltd among the top ten posted a growth exceeding that of the industry in January 2014. While five among the top ten did not fare well and remained at the same level. GSK was the only top drug maker registered a decline in growth as it is still reeling under the drug price control impact. Local companies continued to out-perform foreign drug makers posting a growth of 13.9% as against 4.8% growth respectively in January, as per the IMS data.

The growth forecast for 2014 as per IMS Market Prognosis report is in the range of 10% to 13%, although external factors like the political stability, reforms implementation and seasonal swings may alter this to some extent.