Drugs that are used to treat Covid or used by people as immunity boosters have seen a jump in sales and, in turn, rankings, reports Sohini Das.
Favipiravir brand FabiFlu from Glenmark has catapulted to capture the number one slot in the domestic pharma market in April -- from 169th in February.
With sales of Rs 352 crore in April, this brand alone accounted for over 2 per cent of the total domestic pharma market sales of Rs 15,662 crore.
According to data from market research firm AIOCD AWACS, FabiFlu clocked sales of Rs 351.9 crore in April, a more than seven-fold jump from March.
The second ranking brand Monocef, an antibiotic, clocked sales of Rs 112.9 crore, while the third brand Zincovit registered sales worth Rs 94.8 crore.
The huge jump in FabiFlu sales happened owing to a surge in Covid cases during the month.
Daily fresh cases touched 401,993 on April 30.
FabiFlu is an oral antiviral drug, which is prescribed to mild to moderate Covid patients who are in home quarantine.
In January, sales of FabiFlu was Rs 12.4 crore, which slipped further in February to Rs 11.6 crore.
This was when Covid cases were hovering around a few thousand cases daily.
FabiFlu dislodged an anti-diabetic brand Glycomet, which was at rank 2 in both February and March.
Glycomet was the top brand in the pharma market in January.
Sales of this anti-diabetic brand have grown from Rs 74.8 crore in January to Rs 82.6 crore in April.
Its ranking, however, slipped to 4 in April.
Typically, chronic therapy medicines like anti-diabetic and anti-hypertensive feature in the top five medicine brands in the pharma market.
Glenn Saldanha, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Glenmark said, "We were the first to launch FabiFlu in India for the treatment of mild to moderate cases and have been enabling its access to patients across the country.
"We will continue to innovate and explore other promising treatment options in our core segments."
Drugs that are used to treat Covid or used by people as immunity boosters have seen a jump in sales and, in turn, rankings.
For example, vitamin C brand Limcee jumped from a rank of 433 in January (sales of Rs 5.9 crore) to rank 16 in April (sales of Rs 50.3 crore).
Paracetamol brands Dolo and Calpol feature in the top 20 brands in the pharma market.
The domestic pharmaceuticals market has seen a rebound in April, with sales growing 51.5 per cent over last year, thanks to the low base of April 2020 and a pick-up in demand for Covid-19 drugs.
When compared to the domestic sales of April 2019, the growth is around 37 per cent.
However, compared to the previous month (March 2020), it is 18.4 per cent.
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