India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) is of the opinion that the 6.6% yoy revenue growth in India’s pharmaceutical market (IPM) during November 2021, was led by improving growth trends in chronic therapies, namely cardiac 6% yoy (October 2021: down 1% yoy) and anti-diabetic 6% yoy (October 2021: up 1% yoy ). Acute therapies namely gastro-intestinal, respiratory and pain/analgesics continued to witnessed strong growth, aided by the low base impact. During November 2021, volumes were flat yoy (October 2021: declined 1.6% yoy), while price growth was 5.4% (5.3%) and new products launches were 1.2% (1.4%), driven by acute therapy products.

Ind-Ra expects IPM revenue growth of over 12% yoy for FY22.

Therapy-wise Performance: Acute therapies such as gastro, respiratory and pain/analgesics witnessed sales growth of 13.1% yoy, 16.3% yoy and 17.3% yoy respectively. Growth improvement was observed in chronic therapies during the month, with cardiac growing 6.3% yoy and anti-diabetic reporting 6.0% yoy growth.

Historical Growth Trends of Key Therapies

Company-wise Performance: During MAT Nov 2021, Macleods, Aristo and Emcure significantly outperformed the market, with yoy growth of 23.8%, 28.3% and 25.6%, respectively. This was led by higher sales of COVID-19 related products and the improving performance of acute therapies.