The Hindu Business Line : Vitamin C continues to be in short supply

Mumbai, Nov. 2 The Beijing Olympics is long over, but its indirect impact on Vitamin C supplies is still felt by way of shortages in the Indian market.

The key ingredient that goes into Vitamin C is entirely imported from China. And this bulk has seen a steep increase in prices, following anti-pollution measures in China in the build-up to the Olympics.

Vitamin C is a price-controlled medicine in India. And the steep increase in the price of the key input ingredient has forced companies such as GlaxoSmithKline (maker of Vitamin C brand Celin) and Piramal Healthcare (with its brand Limcee) to knock at the doors of the Government to allow for an upward price revision of the medicine.

Explaining the shortages in the market, an industry representative told Business Line that the fermentation process to make the bulk ingredient is highly corrosive and polluting.

And these factories in China were asked to cut production in a prelude to the Olympics, on environmental grounds.

Fuelling shortage

This sent the price of the key intermediate (2KGA) up from $3 a kg to $12 a kg, fuelling the shortage.

The bulk’s price increase led to Vitamin C prices in India increasing from Rs 400 a kg to Rs 2,500 a kg, the industry source said.

But with the Government’s Drug Price Control Order capping the price at Rs 366 a kg, it became difficult for large formulation manufacturers (or makers of the finished-form of the drug) to buy the ingredient.

And this subsequently saw only 30 per cent production during the peak summer season, the source said.

Though the price of the input ingredient is softening a little, it is still very high. Formulation companies find it difficult, caught between high input prices and the Government’s price control, industry representatives point out.

On ‘wait’ mode

The price of Vitamin C medicines to the consumer are at about Rs 7 for a strip of 10 tablets, and the product has not been available for several months, say chemists in Mumbai. Drug industry associations have in the past had approached the Government for some elbow-room to handle increasing input prices from China, across therapeutic segments, to prevent shortages in the local market.

Consumers, meanwhile, will have to look for alternate sources of Vitamin C, till the Government addresses the issue and the medicine comes back to chemist shelves.

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