The Indian pharma secondary sales (sales made by the distributor to chemists) data for April suggests strong buoyancy in the market.

The value growth for the Indian pharma market remained strong for the third consecutive month, posting a growth of 18.2 per cent in April.

Growth for the May 2011 to April 2012 period increased to 16 per cent vis-a-vis 15.2 per cent growth during April 2011 to March 2012 period.

The data is compiled by the pharma market research company, AIOCD AWACS.

Trends in growth

Trends in growth suggest that large-cap companies grew slower than the market, with the exception of Zydus Cadila (19.2 per cent). Ranbaxy grew 17.8 per cent during the month,

Torrent and Novartis' sales increased 17.7 per cent with Sun closely following them at 17.6 per cent, and Lupin registering 15.6 per cent growth. In contrast, Glenmark witnessed a stellar growth of 35.9 per cent for the month.

Other companies which outpaced the market during the month include Pfizer (30.9 per cent); Glaxo (23.8 per cent); IPCA (20.6 per cent); Wockhardt (19.8 per cent).

Dr Reddy's posted a tepid nine per cent growth, while Unichem witnessed slowest growth among listed companies with a meagre 4.4 per cent growth. Strong secondary sales for the month suggest encouraging off-take at the retail end, which should likely translate into strong primary sales for the Indian companies.

Therapy segments

Anti-diabetic (29.2 per cent), anti-neoplastic (22.3 per cent) and cardiology (21 per cent) were the fastest growing therapy segments, while anti-malarials (10.3 per cent), vaccines (10.6 per cent) and anti-infectives (11.8 per cent) were the key laggards.

Among the therapy segments, it was chronic therapies that outpaced the market.

>Nalinakanthi.venkataraman@thehindu.co.in

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