The pharmaceutical industry, which has been facing uncertainty on the new Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO) 2013, saw tepid growth during May this year.
After posting a growth of 6.8 per cent compared with the same month in the previous year, the pharmaceutical market stood at around Rs 6,370 crore.
In April, the market had grown by 13.9 per cent and was around Rs 6,744 crore.
“Though traditionally the market in May is relatively weak on account of summer vacations and the prevalent heat conditions, we believe that some market factors have further dampened sales uptake in May this year,” said Kumar Hinduja, Senior Director, Strategy Planning, Business Development, Pharma & Payer Solutions, at IMS Health.
He added that the apprehension around implementation of DPCO and its implication on business, including recall or re-labelling of drugs, which undergo price revisions, was one concern that could have prompted many dealers to keep smaller stocks.
According to the new pricing policy, the maximum retail price of a drug would be fixed at the average of the prices of all brands that have that medicine. The brands must have at least one per cent market share.
Once this price is fixed for a certain drug, if any brand’s medicine is higher than the fixed price, the same would have to be reduced. This would require the company to recall the medicines. However, if the price is lower, it would continue to retail at the same price.
During May, Abbott, with a value of Rs 441 crore, had biggest market share (6.9 per cent), followed by Cipla at Rs 302 crore with a 4.7 per cent market share.
However, almost all companies, except Sun Pharma, lost market share in May as compared to the last 12 months.
Only Sun Pharma’s market share rose from 4.4 per cent (during last 12 months) to 4.7 per cent in May.
Interestingly, Ranbaxy, which has been mired in controversy over the last few weeks, saw the small growth of only 0.5 per cent during May. Its value stood at Rs 246 crore and its market share slipped from 4.1 per cent during the last 12 months, to 3.9 per cent during May this year.