The Indian pharmaceutical market registered growth of 7.6 percent in January, down from 8.8 percent in December, due to end of patent exclusivity for high value anti-diabetic drug Vildagliptin, according to market research firm AIOCD-AWACS.
The anti-diabetes segment, agrowth driver for the past few years, however, reported a modest single digit growth of 6.7 percent.
The patents for Vildagliptin in India, held by Novartis, expired on December 9, opening the market for cheap rip-offs. There were 207 brands launched in the month of January which has added 17.33 crores incremental, around one-fifth are Vildagliptin generics.
AIOCD estimates that Vildagliptin and Vildagliptin plus Metformin combination clocked Rs 20 crore lesser in sales. Galvus brand dropped three ranks to 7, clocking sales of Rs 389 crore for the year ended January.
Apart from anti-diabetes segment, other top therapies also failed to perform.
The gastro-intestinal (GI) therapy that lost around Rs 55 crore growing at just 5.3 percent, largely due to recall of ranitidine by GSK.
Cardiovascular segment grew at 10.5 percent.
Anti-infective segment is the largest contributor for IPM about 14 percent of total IPM sales.
The IPM reported sales of Rs 12078 crore for January. The IPM stood at Rs 1.41 trillion for the moving annual total (MAT) ended January, reporting a YoY growth of 9.6 percent.
January saw volume growth at 1 percent and price growth at 4.8 percent and new products growth at 3.4 percent.
Amongst the top 10 Indian drug makers, Dr Reddy’s posted the highest growth at 20.4 percent, followed by Torrent Pharma 15.8 percent, Intas at 11.5 percent and market leader Sun Pharma at 10.3 percent in January.
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