Pharma sales beat inflation

During the 12-month period ended December 2007-November 2008, domestic pharmaceutical retail sales grew by over 10 per cent, according to ORG-IMS. In November industry sales grew by 6.8 per cent.

For the last two months, the pharmaceutical industry recorded relatively lower growth rates, although November witnessed a change in the positive direction. One of the reasons for the growth in the recent months can be attributed to the relatively lower contribution of bonus offer units to the overall sales as compared to the last year. The growth in this component has picked up in the month of November as compared to October however remains lower to the same period last year.

There have been some significant changes among the top 20 companies in month of November '08 as compared to October '08. Abbott has moved up to rank 12, Torrent gained two ranks and has moved up to rank 14 and Dr. Reddy's climbed up to rank 16, though there was no change in the ranking of Top 10 companies.
 
The pharma industry is estimated to have a total sales of Rs76,000 crore.

Global prescription sales growth of generics drugs slowed to 3.6 per cent in the year ended September 2008, down from the 11.4 per cent last year, according to US-based research and consultancy firm IMS Health. 

The top eight global markets - the US, Germany, France, the UK, Canada, Italy, Spain and Japan - today account for 84 per cent of total generics sales. US, the world's largest generics market, that accounts for half of India's total pharma exports grossing over $7 billion, has posted a 2.7 per cent fall in sales till September while volume grew 5.4 per cent.

Of the total drug exports from India, 20 per cent go to the US market. Indian companies exported $1.38 billion (Rs6,497 crore) worth of medicines to the US in 2007-08. India has 175 FDA-approved drug-making factories, the largest number of such plants outside the US.

The US pharmaceuticals regulator, the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) is reported to be opening an office in India in mid-January in India to aid inspections and approvals.

Ranbaxy's woes with USFDA continue
Ranbaxy Laboratories is reported to have missed its December 2008 deadline to launch an anti-migraine drug as the USFDA has yet to give its approval. Ranbaxy had announced the launch in January 2008 after it reached an out-of-court settlement with GlaxoSmithKine (GSK), which allowed it to launch the generic version of Imitrex, worth $1 billion in sales, in the US.

The settlement allows Ranbaxy to exclusively sell its version for 180 days in the US. A December launch would have enabled Ranbaxy to add sales worth $80 to $100 million by June 2009. The company had filed its application for being granted marketing approval a few years ago.

 In September 2008, the USFDA had banned the import of more than 30 generic drugs, including antibiotics and cholesterol medicines, produced by Ranbaxy Laboratories at two of its plants in India, alleging ''serious'' manufacturing deficiencies (See: US FDA bans import of over 30 Ranbaxy generic drugs)

The FDA banned import of the drugs saying the poor quality control at Ranbaxy's factories could be harmful to users of the drugs used to treat high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes and everyday allergies.

The banned drugs include Ranbaxy's popular generic equivalents for antibiotic Cipro and cholesterol reducing Zocor and Metformin as also the generics used for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes and the allergy fighting generics for Claritin and Alavert.