India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said on Tuesday that 13.7 per cent y-o-y revenue growth in India's pharmaceutical market during 2021 was led by continued demand normalisation post-high growth months of April and May.
The growth in June was lower at 14.1 per cent. The higher growth in April (51.5 per cent) and May (47.8 per cent) was because of the lower base effect and COVID-induced demand during the second wave. The lower-though-healthy growth in July was witnessed in therapies which have not benefitted from COVID-led demand in the past. Therapies which have benefitted from COVID-led demand include anti-infectives, gastro and vitamins.
Ind-Ra expected the demand normalisation to continue if the pace of vaccination remains strong. It expected market revenue growth of over 12 per cent y-o-y for FY22.
During 1Q FY22, pharma market reported growth of 37.2 per cent aided by the lower base effect during 1Q FY21 which was impacted due to the nationwide lockdown.
During July, volumes grew 4.5 per cent, price growth was 5.7 per cent and new products launches were at 3.5 per cent attributed to acute therapy products.
Acute therapies like anti-infectives, analgesic and respiratory witnessed sales growth of 30.2 per cent, 24.1 per cent and 22.8 per cent respectively while gastro grew 19.6 per cent during July.
Growth underperformance was observed in chronic therapies during the month with cardiac and anti-diabetic growing 4.1 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively.
During moving annual total July, Cipla, Glenmark and Emcure significantly outperformed the market with y-o-y growth of 19.4 per cent, 33.9 per cent and 26.1 per cent respectively.
This was led by higher sales of COVID-19 related products and the continued outperformance of chronic therapies, said Ind-Ra.
