India's pharmaceutical market faces retail chain onslaught

MUMBAI, March 16 (Xinhua) -- India's pharmaceutical market is witnessing a threat of declining revenue growth rate from the deepening penetration of government's generic drug store as well as private chains selling generic drugs.

Analysis of growth drivers indicated slowdown from 13.5 percent to 10 percent over the past three years, according to a report released by stock brokerage house Edelweiss Securities on Friday.

"State schemes like Jan Aushadhi stores and hyper-local chains like Generico are playing their part in improving access to trade generics," the report said.

"Going forward, Bureau of Pharmaceutical public sector units has set a target to take Jan Aushadhi from current 1 percent to 20 perent potentially disrupting the 18.8-billion-U.S. dollar Indian pharmaceutical market."

To add to woes of the pharmaceutical companies but help the cause of the patients, frequent regulatory intervention continues to affect pricing of the drugs.

Currently, 24 percent of the Indian pharmaceutical market is under price control where price increases are linked to the whole sale price inflation.

Earlier this month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said medicines are available at 50-90 percent lower in prices than the market rates at the government generic stores.