New introductions and price growth driving pharma market growth

Sales in the domestic pharmaceutical market in February touched ₹18,781 crore, up 7.5% from a year earlier, data from B2B commerce platform Pharmarack showed. Overall, the moving annual total (MAT) value growth until February was 8.1%, with the industry clocking sales of ₹2.24 trillion. MAT refers to the total value of sales over the previous 12 months.

However, volumes fell 0.2% in February. “Volume growth overall for the market seems to be stagnated,” said Sheetal Sapale, vice-president, commercial at Pharmarack. This is in keeping with previous months, where market growth has been driven by new introductions and price growth, as opposed to volume growth. Some of the months in 2024 saw volumes decline year-on-year.

Cardiac, gastro lead

Cardiac and gastro remained the top revenue contributors, recording almost 10% value growth in February. Apart from these, urology, blood-related disorders and stomatological (mouth/dental-related) therapies also registered strong double-digit value growth.

Top contributing therapies like cardiac, gastro, blood-related, hormones, antineoplastics and urology also registered strong volume growth, along with price rise.

“Certain therapies…among the top have shown a very good unit growth as well, this should ideally get reflected in the volume growth shown by these therapies,” Sapale said. These include cardiac, gastro, gynaecology, anti-diabetes and vitamins.

Top players see encouraging growth

While overall revenue grew 7.5% in February, top companies such as Sun Pharmaceuticals, Intas Pharmaceuticals, Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Zydus Lifesciences and Micro Labs reported double-digit growth.

“This is quite encouraging, if you look at the top 20 companies, they contribute to almost 70% of the Indian pharma market…and they drive the growth of the market to a great extent,” Sapale said.

GSK’s prescription antibiotic Augmentin retained its spot as the best-selling brand in the Indian market in February, followed by USV’s oral anti-diabetic, Glycomet GP1. Notably, Himalaya’s Liv.52, used for hepatic disorders, clinched the third spot for the second consecutive month. However, it is in sixth position if considering MAT value over the last 12 months.

A majority of the top 20 brands registered promising double-digit growth in both value and units in February. These include Alkem’s Pan 40 tablet, Novo Nordisk and Abbott’s Ryzodeg insulin, Mankind’s manforce tablet for erectile dysfunction and Abbott’s thyronorm, used for hypothyroidism.