India

The leading 100 pharmaceutical companies in India reported slow growing financial results for the year ending in March, with sales increasing 3.3% to INR 2,07,447 crore ($301.7 billion; 1 crore = INR 10 million), the lowest growth in the past five years. This is largely due to US FDA rulings related to product quality and a difficult time finding footing in the US generic drug pricing environment. Other factors such as price cuts, competition, implementation of GST taxes and exchange rates also contributed to the disappointing performance.

Of the top 100 companies, 35 reported pharmaceutical sales over INR 1,000 crore ($145.5 million). Seven of these companies reported sales over INR 10,000 crore ($1.5 billion), such as Aurobindo Pharma, Cipla, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories and Sun Pharmaceuticals. Merck and Dr. Lal PathLabs joined the list of the top 35 companies for the first time, each with net sales of more than INR 1,000 crore ($145.5 million).

While 13 companies’ net sales increased more than 20%, 31 companies achieved only single-digit growth in sales during the year, and  36 companies’ net sales decreased. After adjustments, net profits of the companies on the list fell 11.8% to INR 22,516 crore ($3.28 billion).

Source: PharmaBiz

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