Indian Pharma Sales Grow 9% In March

The Indian pharmaceuticals market continued to report healthy performance with a 9.5% year-on-year jump in sales in March. The led by growth across cardiac, anti-Infectives, gastro-intestinal, anti-diabetic, dermatology, and central-nervous-system therapies, according to data from the All Indian Origin Chemists and Distributors Ltd. In terms of growth drivers, price and new launches drove the overall IPM performance, while the volume growth remained muted.

The market had grown 9% and 9.5% in February and January respectively.

In financial year 2024, the IPM delivered an overall year-on-year growth of 6.5% in comparison to 9.9% in fiscal 2023, according to Krishnanath Munde, associate director at India Ratings and Research Pvt., which expects the growth to be at 8–9% in fiscal 2025.

• Volume growth remained muted at 0.8%, as against 3.4% in March 2023.

• Consistent price growth of 5.7% in fiscals 2024 and 2023

• New launches increased 2.9% as compared with 2.4% in March 2023.

• Sales of cardiac therapies rose the most at 15% YoY.

• This was followed by derma and anti-diabetic, which grew 13.4% and 12.4% respectively.

• Gastrointestinal and anti-infectives grew 9% each.

The moving annual total—or the 12-month rolling sales of overall pharma products—rose 6.5% in March.

Ajanta Pharma Ltd. reported the highest growth in March at 14.3%, followed by Eris Lifesciences Ltd., which rose 12.2%. Torrent Pharma Ltd., Mankind Pharma Ltd. and Alembic Pharma Ltd. reported growth of 11.3%, 10% and 10.3% respectively. Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd. reported a growth of 9.9%. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. had an in-line growth of 9.3%.

Abbott India Ltd. reported a growth of 8.4%, while Cipla Ltd. posted an 8.5% growth followed by Alkem Laboratories Ltd., which posted a growth of 8.5%, underperforming the market.

Lupin Ltd. reported a growth of 6.7%, followed by GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and FDC Ltd, which posted a growth of 2.5% and 2.6% respectively.

Pfizer Ltd. and Sanofi India Ltd. posted negative growth of 7.9% and 1% respectively.