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While the Department of Pharmaceuticals has notified the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) last week, which will bring prices of 348 essential medicines under control, and, in turn, impact the sales and margins of major pharmaceutical companies, data compiled by pharma research firm AIOCD AWACS shows that the Indian pharma market grew by 9.3 per cent during April this year, compared to the same month in the previous year.
The data further shows that chronic therapies like neuro/CNS has grown the highest, around 13 per cent during the month, while other therapies like diabetes and cardiovascular have also seen a growth of 11.1 and 10.4 per cent respectively. In comparison, the anti-infective market has a growth of 6 per cent whereas respiratory market is at 8 per cent growth.
This is higher than the growth in March, when chronic therapies had slowed down to single-digit growth. Among other therapies, dermatological segment clocked a robust 13 per cent.
AIOCD data also highlights that Indian pharmaceutical companies have fared better in comparison to their foreign multi-national counterparts.
"For the month of April 2013, amongst the top 10, Zydus Cadila at 28 per cent , Sun Pharma at 25.8 per cent, & Alkem has registered growth of 16.8 per cent," Hari Natarajan, vice president, PharmaTrac - India & Global Audit, AIOCD Pharmasofttech AWACS Pvt. Ltd. In comparison, AstraZeneca has seen a sales growth of around 15.6 per cent during the month, Sanofi Aventis and its acquired entity Universal Medicare grew by 6.8 per cent and Meyer Organics a mere 3.4 per cent during April.
However, the scenario is likely to start changing from July onwards as the domestic pharmaceutical market is expected to see a value erosion of around Rs 1,600 crore thanks to the DPCO order. The new DPCO, which replaces the earlier one of 1995, has brought under price control 348 essential medicines as against 74 bulk drugs earlier. IMS Health, a market research firm, claims in its analysis that the share of these 348 medicines which now contribute around Rs 13,033 crore to the total annual sales of around Rs 72,762 crore is expected to come down to Rs 11,437 crore annually, or a 12 per cent dip.
