From rising prescriptions to the pharma sales force back on the field with full vigour and companies finally finding their feet with the digital marketing strategies - Indian drug makers have shown that medicine sales is certainly a sunshine sector.
The Budget proposals are expected to boost the fortunes of consumer goods and fast-moving consumer goods companies, which have been struggling with poor consumer demand for more than a year. The Budget announcements, such as the increase in standard deduction by Rs 25,000 for income-tax payers and slab revisions, will put more money in their hands, boosting consumer demand. Private consumption is also likely to benefit from a new scheme to offer internships to 10 million youths in the country's top 500 companies.
Once tipped to emerge as the biggest exporter, the pharmaceutical industry is yet to acquire the scale of those in software services, says Krishna Kant.
The biggest bounce is in the realty sector, where the industry index jumped 80%. There's been a turnaround also in automobiles and ancillaries (up 45%). The pharma and health care indices have a welcome return of roughly 35%.
Big pharma companies, however, said while it was true that formulation players would not rush to buy raw material, they could not afford losing customers.
This is a shift as until recent months, fund managers were reducing exposure to these sectors.
The only category of pharmaceuticals that showed a negative growth in exports this time was herbal products, exports of which stood at $299 million as compared to $ 312 million in the previous year.
Industry fears tougher US stance on IP after President Donald Trump asserted that foreign countries must pay a fair share for drug development costs. Aneesh Phadnis reports.
FDI in drugs and pharmaceuticals was $487 million during April-August 2012, according to the latest data of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.
Equity investors suffered a massive loss of Rs 31 lakh crore on Tuesday as markets went into a tailspin with the BSE Sensex tumbling nearly 6 per cent as vote counting trends showed the BJP may not have a clear majority in the Lok Sabha polls. Erasing the record-rally of the previous trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex cracked 4,389.73 points or 5.74 per cent to settle at 72,079.05. During the day, the benchmark tanked 6,234.35 points or 8.15 per cent to hit a nearly five-month low of 70,234.43.
In a big push to the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, the government has nearly doubled (increase of 81 per cent) the allocation in five key industry segments from Rs 8,405 crore in the Revised Estimate of FY24 to Rs 15,198 crore in the Interim Budget for FY25. The segments cover over eight PLI schemes, including mobile phones, IT hardware, pharma (PLIs for medical devices, intermediates and pharmaceuticals), food processing, telecom hardware and, auto and auto components. In FY24, DPIIT officials, however, said that the disbursements would be much higher at around Rs 11,000 crore than what has been budgeted for the year.
Only 11 antibiotics in clinical trials have received qualified infectious disease product status from the US FDA, of which five are Wockhardt's drugs.
The API of Paracetamol, a fever and pain medication, has grown 25 per cent from Rs 450-480 per kg in December 2020 to Rs 580-600 per kg in April. When compared to the pre-Covid prices of December 2019, the surge is much steeper -- around 140 per cent, reports Sohini Das.
China's API exports to India touched $3.3 billion last year, while Indian drugs struggled to post $500 million worth of exports to China.
'Like every Budget, this time, too, there is chatter around tinkering with the long-term capital gains tax.' 'Investors may not want to jump into the markets until there is clarity on this front.'
Sun Pharma open to large acquisitions post Ranbaxy.
Which entrepreneur would willingly part with her or his hard-earned money for grasping, self-serving politicians? asks Debashis Basu.
The external affairs minister, speaking at a media summit organised by the TV9 Network, described the rise of India and China as "significant" in the global geopolitical scenario.
We don't expect any big changes in on excise duty and custom duty rates, except in life saving drugs.
sharper-than-expected economic recovery back home, analysts say, can fuel a further rally in domestic cyclicals, industrials, and financials as global central banks continue with their easy money policy.
Indian Pharma majors are looking at different strategies to boost their global business.
The founders of Gland Pharma, led by Ravi Penmetsa, and KKR, together own 96 per cent of the company.
Nearly 40 per cent of IITians sitting for placements in 2024 are yet to receive job offers, showing a doubling of the 'unplaced' in the last three years from 19 per cent in 2021-2022 to 38 per cent in 2023-2024.
Cadila, Biocon developing rapid antibody testing kits; Eris, Mylan, Gland importing. There are two kinds of testing for the novel coronavirus - the real-time polymerase chain reaction test kit that uses throat or nasal swabs and provides results in a few hours, and the other is antibody-based rapid testing kit that use blood samples and provides results in a few minutes.
Sun Pharma was the biggest loser among Sensex components, plunging 3.94 per cent, followed by Tata Steel falling 3.12 per cent.
Although the third quarter of financial year (2023-2024) FY24 (Q3FY24) was marginally below expectations, Info Edge (India) is witnessing strong investment trends and hitting new highs. The big driver is optimism about a pickup in the jobs market, which benefits Naukri.com and could mean upgrades in Q4FY24 expectations. The JobSpeak Index, which Naukri.com releases on a monthly basis, is showing a "transformative shift".
After a sharp fall in the share prices of HDFC Bank and other private sector lenders in the past three days, the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sector weighting in the Nifty50 has slipped to a seven-year low of 32.03 per cent, down from nearly 36.6 per cent at the end of March 2023 and 34.5 per cent at the end of December 2023.
The recent US-India friction over trade is being driven by Big Pharma.
Indian pharmaceutical companies, which always wanted a big share in the global copycat drug market, are betting high on the oral contraceptive (OC) market in America.
Operating margins have been the primary driver of corporate earnings in India in recent quarters, despite revenue growth suffering from weak consumer demand. Companies across sectors have reported a sharp improvement in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) margins over the past two years, benefiting from lower commodity and energy prices. Higher margins more than compensated for slower revenue growth, resulting in double-digit growth in net profit for five consecutive quarters.
It, however, was a record-smashing week for both the indices, which scaled their lifetime highs.
The big companies too are responsible for the sub-standard drugs in the market.
Statements of five 'Angadiya' firm operators have also been recorded by the ED to establish the "money trail" of this alleged Rs 45 crore bribe amount.
Jefferies, IIFL, and JM Financial - none of which were in the top five last year - have now claimed the top spots in the league tables for equity capital markets (ECM) during the first nine months of calendar year 2023 (CY23), a period characterised by small- and mid-sized transactions. This shift marks a significant change, with these firms outperforming the bulge-bracket investment banks. According to data provided by Refinitiv, Jefferies leads the domestic ECM market, having handled share sales worth $2.3 billion, representing 12.4 per cent of the total volume of $18.4 billion for ECM transactions.
With nearly 5% share in the world generic market, are Indian pharma companies ready to go global? How competitive are their current business models?
More than half of the small-scale pharmaceutical units operational in India have either closed down or indefinitely suspended business activities in the last two years, having being struck by un-favourable government policies and the inability to compete with big companies in the changing business environment.
After making big-ticket acquisitions abroad, leading Indian pharmaceutical companies like Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Ranbaxy Laboratories, and Aurobindo Pharma are rapidly shifting production to their Indian facilities.
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