India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) has stated the 10.3% year-on-year growth of India's pharmaceutical market (IPM) during March was led by volume growth of 1.6%, price growth of 5.1% and products launches at 3.6%.

The growth was attributed to acute therapy products primarily in anti-infective, gastro and vitamins segments.

But the growth was 2% lower than Ind-Ra's earlier estimates due to a higher-than-estimated impact of lockdowns and local restrictions on acute therapy products.

"However, we estimate the market growth to rebound to 8 to 10 per cent during FY22 as we have started witnessing higher sales of acute therapy products partially aided by lower base impact of FY21."

During 4Q FY21, the pharmaceutical market grew 5.3% led by a volume decline of 2.4%, price growth of 5% and products launches at 2.7%. On moving average total (MAT) for the past 12 months, the growth was 2.1% for March 2021.

Acute therapies such as gastro and vitamins witnessed sales growth of 21.6 per cent and 22.2 per cent respectively while anti-infectives grew 8.5% yoy during March 2021.

Growth underperformance was observed in chronic therapies during the month with cardiac and anti-diabetic growing 6.3% and 0.3% respectively.

However, on a moving average total March 2021 basis, a growth outperformance was observed across these therapies.

Cipla, Glenmark and Aristo significantly outperformed the market with growth of 7.5%, 15.2% and 6.8%.

This was led by higher sales of COVID-19 related products and the continued outperformance of chronic therapies, said Ind-Ra.