India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) opines the decline in revenues in India’s pharmaceutical market (IPM) during March 2022 was led by a lower contribution from Covid-19 related drugs. Sales of Covid-19 related drugs declined 7% YoY which contributed 33% to March 2022 monthly sales. Strong volume declines were observed in key therapies, such as anti-infectives (15% YoY) and vitamins (11% YoY). In March 2021, the second Covid wave had led to higher volume growth which led to a higher base effect.  

Channel checks also suggest inventory calibration in lieu of potential price hikes in the portfolio from April 2022. While Ind-Ra expects the magnitude of price hike to be higher in chronic therapies such as cardiac and anti-diabetic, higher raw material costs and competitive intensity will also determine the overall price hikes to be taken by companies.

While the decline was observed during March 2022, Ind-Ra expects FY22 IPM to have witnessed 15% YoY sales growth, higher than the 8%-10% observed over the past five years, aided by the base effect. During 4QFY22, sales volumes fell 3% YoY (3QFY22: down 1% YoY), price growth was 5% (5%) while new products launches were 2.0% (1.0%).

Therapy-wise Performance: There has been a weak performance across therapies (except respiratory & central nervous system (CNS) in March 2022. Acute therapies such as respiratory, anti-infective, pain/analgesics, gastro-intestinal, and vitamins witnessed sales growth of 4% YoY, negative 19% YoY, 1% YoY, negative 1% YoY and negative 4% YoY, respectively. Chronic therapies such as cardiac, anti-diabetic and CNS reported growth of 1% YoY, 1% YoY and 3% YoY growth, respectively, during the month.

Historical Growth Trends of Key Therapies