Demand for 163 medicines surged in Covid 2.0

The sale of non-Covid-19 drugs underperformed on a two-year CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) basis in the recent months, says a Nomura report. However, 163 molecules and combinations benefited significantly from the second wave of Covid-19, and the market share of the top 20 corporates combined has increased by 300 basis points from November 2018 to November 2021, the research firm says.

The products that have grown during the second wave of Covid-19 include antibiotics, antivirals, steroids, respiratory drugs, anti-coagulants, vitamins/minerals, analgesics and associated gastric medications. “These Covid-19-related drugs contributed 19.5% of Indian Pharmaceutical Market (IPM) sales during November, compared to a peak contribution of 28.4% during May”, a research note from Nomura reads.

IPM grew at 6.1% on a year-on-year basis in November. In two-year CAGR terms, from November 2019 to November 2021, IPM grew at 3.6%. The non-Covid-19 drugs grew slower at a 2.9% CAGR during the same period.

While the average two-year CAGRs over the past four months have been ahead of IPM for Sun Pharma, Cipla, Torrent Pharma, Dr. Reddy’s and Ipca; companies like Cadila, Lupin, Alkem, GSK, Pfizer and Glenmark fared below IPM.

Nomura analysis is based on the data released by market intelligence firm Pharmatrac for the India pharma market (IPM) for November 2021.

The research firm says that the underperformance of non-Covid-19 drugs on a two-year CAGR over the last few months is driven by a slowdown in chronic therapies compared to pre-pandemic times. Further, the growth of IPM was driven by a price increase, rather than a volume increase.

“Volume growth remained weak at 0% during Nov’21 on a lower base of Nov’20. Price growth and new product growth came in at 5.4% and 1.2%, respectively, during Nov’21. We note that over the past 12 months price growth has remained strong, while volume growth has remained weak except during Apr’21 and May’21 due to a lower base of last year. New product growth has also slowed down marginally over the past three months compared to previous months”, the report says.

Nomura report reads that companies have indicated that though the growth is somewhat slower than the pre-pandemic levels, as complete normalisation in terms of patient footfall has yet to happen, absolute growth is much stronger than that reported by Pharmatrac.