Guj cos fare well despite slow growth in pharma

The Indian pharma market witnessed lowest growth in a long time during August, at 1.1 per cent, according to a recent report. However, some of the Gujarat-based firms have done well.

The analysis by All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD)-AWACS, a pharmaceutical market research organisation claims that the last low growth experienced in the month of November 2012, when the market had grown by 4.3 per cent. "Assuming the growths for the month of July and August 2013 that we have seen, we expect that the volumes would have gone into the negative for the first ever time in the history of the pharma market.

The Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) 2013 even though would have resulted in value erosion, but should have ideally resulted in volume increases, which in contrary to what is seen," the analysis further said.

The market research firm feels that the next few months would determine what would be the outlook for the next year. The report further says that, "Amongst upcoming corporates Corona Remedies grows at 73.1 per cent." Corona is an Ahmedabad based pharma company that clocked a turnover of Rs 100 crore in 2012-13. The company has recently tied up with a Spanish firm to market a oral rehydration salt, and a Belgian firm KitoZyme to market Chitosan, a natural fat binder under the brand name Rasva.

However, import and sale of drugs currently constitute around 5-7 per cent of its turnover, while nearly 70 per cent comes from drug sales manufactured in-house at its Himachal Pradesh plant and the remaining 25 per cent comes from product sales sourced through contract manufacturing.

According to the report, among the other Gujarat-based companies which have fared well in terms of growth during the month are Intas Pharma (growth rate during August 6.4 per cent), Torrent Pharma (6.6 per cent), Alembic (2.2 per cent) and Zydus Cadila (3.8 per cent).

In comparison, Glaxo has seen a de-growth of 17.6 per cent, Mankind (-3 per cent), Pfizer (-8.1 per cent), Wokhardt (-11.6 per cent) and Unichem (-6.5 per cent).

The DPCO 2013 containing molecules market de-grew by 12.3 per cent whereas the non DPCO market grew by 3.3 per cent resulting in an overall growth of 1.1 per cent for Aug 2013. The DPCO 2013 portfolio for Glaxo de-grew at 30.4 per cent and Ranbaxy de-grew by 21.1 per cent, whereas Sun Pharma had the least impact with its DPCO 2013 portfolio de-growing at 1.7 per cent, the AIOCD analysis claimed.

Amongst the various molecules with specific strengths under DPCO 2013, Amoxycillin - Clavulanic acid de-grew at 4.2 per cent, Atorvastatin market de-grew by 27.8 per cent, Paracetamol de-grew by 20.1 per cent, & Azithromycin de-grew by 18.7 per cent.