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Economic Times
3 days ago
- Health
- Economic Times
Sprays, pills, creams...ooh, aah, ouch? India's pain market is now a Rs 16,000 cr giant
Synopsis India's pain relief market has exploded post-pandemic, doubling to nearly ₹16,000 crore in just five years. From gels and sprays to pills like Dolo and Zerodol, pain meds are now a daily fix for everything from gym soreness to chronic stress. The shift is lifestyle-driven and increasingly normalised, but experts warn against unchecked self-medication. As the over-the-counter space booms, driven by awareness and ease of access, the line between relief and risk is getting worryingly thin. Agencies Mumbai: Indians are increasingly popping over-the-counter pills, using sprays or rubbing in creams to soothe their aches and pains, adding more than a billion dollars to the pain management market over the past five years. The category is the biggest within the non-prescription segment, and has seen about five brands launched every week on average since the pandemic, industry executives said, citing Nielsen data. There were 1,552 brands -including Volini, Omnigel, Dolo and Saridon -to tackle the twinges in 2020; now, there are 2,771. Consumers are more attentive to alleviating any pain on a more immediate basis, said Shivam Puri, managing director at Cipla Health, which sells the biggest rubefacient brand, Omnigel. Rubefacient are gels and creams for topical application. "Rise of urbanisation and increase in chronic illnesses have led to the need for faster, more convenient formats that are accessible across platforms," said Puri. This is despite medical professionals advising caution on random use of painkillers. The pain relief category is often lifestyle-driven in urban markets, especially with gym and sports injuries. As a result, the market for analgesics (pain relief medication) and rubefacient more than doubled to ₹15,905 crore as of May this year, from ₹6,820 crore as of May 2020, growing at a compounded annual rate of 18%. This is three times faster than overall over-the-counter market growth, which rose at 6% CAGR to ₹80,000 crore. Analgesics account for 75% of the pain medication market and within analgesics, paracetamol is the biggest contributor, according to data from market researcher PharmaTrac. Covid has changed Indians' views on pain management, said Sandeep Verma, head for consumer health business for South Asia at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, which sells Saridon. 'A lot of Indians view taking pain relief medication as a sign of weakness or worry about becoming dependent on it. Covid made many of us more aware of how stress, exhaustion, and even mild but recurring pain can chip away at our wellbeing and productivity,' he said.'More people are starting to understand that living with untreated pain impacts their quality of life."Experts said pain management medications are also used to treat inflammation and adjacent issues, widening the need for the pills.'The analgesic segment that is dominated by paracetamols has been growing at a steady rate of 10%. This is because paracetamol medications are taken alongside other conditions that could include arthritis, any other bacterial or viral infection,' said Sheetal Sapale, vice president, commercial, at Kumar Sinha, consultant physician at Mumbai-based WeCare Wellness, said lifestyle-related problems — including rising stress levels, lack of sleep and increasing obesity — are reasons for increasing demand for pain medications.'Lack of physical exercise, increase in body weight leading to knee and joint pain, anxiety, depression are all causes of increase in body pain, headaches or migraine,' he said.'There is also an increase in people doing self-medication and several mandatory prescription drugs, strong painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications — that can have severe harmful effects, such as damage to the kidneys, if used over a prolonged period — are today available easily at chemist shops without prescriptions,' said top-selling drugs in the pain category are IPCA's Zerodol SP, Janssen's Ultracet, GSK's Calpol, Micro Lab's Dolo, Torrent's Chymoral Forte and Cipla's Ibugesic Plus. A majority of them are prescription pain is not the only category that people are self-medicating in since the pandemic. Skin creams, earlier prescribed by dermatologists, are drawing a consumer base, especially Gen Z products, which treat scalp and skin issues and form the second biggest category after pain, expanded 8% CAGR over the past five years and are now a ₹14,854 crore Prakash, partner and healthcare services industry leader at Grant Thornton, said, 'Over-the-counter as a segment has grown post-Covid because of more knowledge and information for categories including anti-allergic medications, skin creams, tear drops among others.'
Time of India
08-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Pharma lobby flags 'cumbersome' export rule, seeks change
New Delhi: A significant dip in exports has prompted pharma lobby groups to raise a demand for changing the centralised no-object certification (NOC) provision for drug exports . The provision, which requires pharma companies to seek an approval from the national regulatory agency of the importing country or an NOC from the Indian regulator for shipments, has resulted in a drop in exports and diverted trade to other nations, industry executives told ET. The issue was raised in a meeting held on Monday at Niti Aayog . "Pharma exports have suffered due to the mismatch or an anomaly in newly introduced regulatory standards by the drug regulatory authority of India," said a person who attended the meeting. In early March, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) updated the export NOC checklist in the wake of events such as the controversy over a Mumbai-based drugmaker allegedly exporting addictive opioid drugs to West African nations such as Ghana and Nigeria. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like What the Market May Be Getting Wrong About Nvidia Seeking Alpha Read More Undo However, the stringent norms have started hurting exports, industry insiders said. "Taking approvals from different regulatory bodies has only made the whole process cumbersome," the person cited above said. He noted that medicines are manufactured depending on the patient population construct. Live Events For example, Dolo and other paracetamol tablets are approved in India in strengths of 325mg, 500 mg and 650 mg while in Nigeria, it's approved for a strength of 1,000 mg. To manufacture and export that, Indian drugmakers now require an NOC from Nigerian authorities. The lobby groups have urged the government to review the provision as, according to them, this would divert trade to other nations with less stringent regulations. "Such a condition has imposed an undue burden on Indian exporters, potentially stifling innovation and hindering the export of unapproved/banned products especially for the MSME pharmaceutical sector, which is under tremendous strain with respect to compliance to domestic and international guidelines and trade barriers (tariffs & non-tariffs),' an industry expert said on condition of anonymity. The Niti Aayog had called pharma experts to undertake an analysis of the current state of the industry, to understand the challenges faced by drugmakers and initiatives taken by them to ensure production of safe and effective products. Nikkhil K Masurkar, chief executive of Entod Pharmaceuticals, said the official think tank's call for a quality overhaul is both "timely and necessary." "While India has made remarkable strides as a global pharma hub, maintaining consistent, internationally acceptable quality standards remains a key challenge, especially among MSME companies," he said. "The root of the problem often lies not in intent, but in outdated infrastructure, fragmented regulatory enforcement, and insufficient technical training," Masurkar said. "To produce world-class medicines, we must invest in continuous quality improvement, digitalise compliance systems, and empower our MSME sector with both financial and technical support."
Time of India
26-06-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Govt to bring in barcodes to fight fake drug menace
In a bid to weed out spurious drugs , manufacturers of antimicrobials, narcotic drugs, vaccines, and psychotropic substances will have to mandatorily affix barcodes or quick response (QR) codes on their product labels. The Union health ministry is set to shortly amend the drug rules for implementing this measure, people in the know told ET. The proposal to affix barcodes has been in the works for long, though it faced opposition from various stakeholders. A consultative meeting was held last month wherein the stakeholders raised their concerns. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Has Toyota Done It Again? The New RAV4 Is Finally Here (Take A Peek) FrequentSearches | Search Ads Learn More Undo However, the Drugs Consultative Committee (DCC) under the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) in a meeting this Tuesday deliberated and opined that the stakeholder concerns do not appear to be "substantial" in public interest and agreed to appropriately amend the Drugs Rules, 1945, according to the minutes of the meeting a copy of which was seen by ET. Live Events Earlier, the drug regulator had included a few cancer drugs to mandatorily have barcodes for validating their authenticity following incidents of refilling of expensive anti-cancer drugs by criminals with counterfeits. Criminals in collusion with hospital pharmacies were found refilling empty vials of expensive anti-cancer medicines with counterfeit drugs. These fake drugs were then mixed with genuine stocks and sold to unsuspecting cancer patients, putting their lives at risk. The regulator had made it mandatory for companies to have barcodes on the top 300 brands, so that information such as manufacturing licence and batch number can be accessed upon scanning. These drugs include widely-used analgesics, pain relievers, anti-platelet, vitamin supplements, blood-sugar lowering medicines and contraceptive tablets. "The move was to ensure authenticity of drugs and enable tracing," said a government official, on the condition of anonymity. Brands identified by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority include Dolo, Saridon Fabiflu, Ecosprin, Limcee, Sumo, Calpol, Corex syrup, Unwanted 72, and Thyronorm. They were shortlisted based on their moving annual turnover value based on data from market researcher Pharmatrac. The government had been trying to introduce QR codes since 2011. It however couldn't proceed with the plan following concerns by pharma companies and lobby groups, before it was eventually implemented in 2023.
