There is worrying news emerging from the Indian retail market for medicines: Anti-diabetes medicines is one of the fastest growing medicine segments today, according to AIOCD Pharma soft tech AWACS, a pharma market research company that provides trends in pharma retail sales based on data sourced from pharma retail stockists.
Over 12 months (October 2012 to September 2013), it says, this segment posted a 11 per cent growth. In comparison, the current pharma industry growth in India is just around 7 per cent, which incidentally, according to those in the industry is less than its normal growth rate of around 10 to 12 per cent on account of several factors including the impact of price controls imposed on an expanded list of essential drugs.
The data from AIOCD AWACS points out that the anti-diabetics segment is the seventh largest medicine market segment by value. It is a Rs.4964 crore or one could say close to Rs.5000 crore. Anti-invective or antibiotics is the leading segment, followed by cardiac, and gastro-intestinal, ranked third. This is followed by vitamins/minerals/nutrients, then medicines for respiratory disorders and pain and analgesics at sixth position.
Take Sun Pharma for instance, which is one of the leading companies in the anti-diabetics segment. Its spokesperson says, anti-diabetics is one of the fastest growing market segments for the company other than gastro and cardiac. For Sun Pharma, anti-diabetes is the fourth largest segment. It accounts for 11 per cent of its India revenues. It is a Rs.400 crore market for the company in India.
The fact that anti-diabetes medication as one of the fastest growing markets should not come as a surprise, experts say. "We add about a million new patients every year now," says Dr V Mohan, a leading diabetologist in the country. He is the founder of Dr Mohan's Diabetes Specialities Centre that began with its first diabetes centre in 1991 in Chennai. It is present in several cities in the country today.
He says what is more worrying is that the disease is now seeing an onset amongst young people in who are in their 20s and 30s. Also, it is starting to affect people belonging to the middle income and poor sections of society. The average insulin-based therapy costs around Rs.5000 per month. It could burn a hole in the pockets of those unable to afford such continuous, added expenses. India, he says, has a total of 63 million diabetic patients today. Oncology and cancer care are some other fast growing segments.
The long term solution for diabetes, Dr Mohan says, lies in having more parks and options for people to walk, exercise and to eat healthy foods. In short, a healthier lifestyle. Perhaps on the world diabetes day today, it is time for us to start leading this lifestyle.
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