Demand for chronic drugs likely to rise 30% ahead of price hike

There would be a general rise in demand for chronic medicines as consumers would stock up ahead of a price rise

Stockists and traders of pha­rma products pointed out that they expect demand for chr­onic therapy medications, such as hypertension and diabetic, to rise by at least 30 per cent ahead of the 10.7 per cent hike in essential medicine prices.

Rajiv Singhal, general secretary of the All India Organization of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), an umb­rella association of more than 650,000 retail chemists in the country, said the tra­de channels now had around one and a half month’s inventory. 

“There is stock with the C&F agents, retailers and also some in the company warehouses. We can easily estimate that trade has around