HQ Team
January 16, 2023:The Indian pharmaceutical industry is expected to witness “decent growth” during the three-month period through 31 March 2023, mainly led by continued traction in the domestic formulations business, according to a report.
The domestic formulations business is poised to maintain a “normalised growth trajectory of ~10% year-over-year during the (business) quarter,” per brokerage house ICICI Direct Research. Drug makers’ American portfolio is also expected to deliver “decent growth amid favourable currency movement and new launches.”
ICICI Securities’ retail research division tracks 13 Indian pharmaceutical companies. These drug makers are “expected to post (a) ~13% growth to INR50,342 crore,” the 13 January report added.
The NSE’s Nifty Pharma index, a basket of 20 stocks, has dipped some 0.47% over the last six months, to 12,653.15 points.
“Domestic formulations (select pack) are expected to experience a jump of ~12% year-on-year at INR13,075 crore to be driven by incremental chronic disease prevalence, positive seasonality effect in acute therapies, new products introduction, MR and geographical expansion and growing patient awareness campaigns by pharma companies,” ICICI Direct’s analysts Siddhant Khandekar, Kushal Shah and Utkarsh Jain wrote in the report.
Meanwhile, on the US front, favourable currency movement is expected to play out during the quarter as the rupee has depreciated 9.6% versus the greenback.
“The US base business environment continues to remain challenging. Besides currency movement, we expect growth to be driven by new launches and volume gains. We expect (the) US (select pack) portfolio to grow ~10% year-over-year (YoY) to INR13,785 crore. (The) Europe (select pack) is expected to ‘de grow’ ~1% YoY to INR2,861 crore due to adverse currency movement (the rupee has appreciated ~2% against thee Euro) and (a) lack of meaningful launches. (Furthermore, the) API segment (select pack) is likely to grow ~6% YoY to INR4,883 crore,” the analysts added.
“Profits after taxes (PAT) of (the) coverage universe is expected to remain flat at INR7,292 crore,” said Khandekar, Shah and Jain.
The brokerage firm tracks these pharma companies: Alembic Pharma, Ajanta Pharma, Aurobindo, Biocon, Cipla, Divi’s Lab, Dr Reddy’s, Ipca Lab, Lupin, Laurus Labs, Sun Pharma, Torrent Pharma and Zydus Lifesciences.ENDS//