Indian companies score over multinationals in vitamins

As Mumbai, India-based Universal Medicare teams up with Private Equity firm Kedaara Capital to acquire Sanofi India's branded nutraceutical business, and Bayer officially sets up its consumer health division in India, pharmaceutical companies are readying for the long haul in India as vitamin and mineral supplements continue to fly off pharmacy shelves, reports The Pharma Letter’s India correspondent.

Despite the continued strong performance led by acute and chronic therapy segments in the Indian pharmaceutical market (IPM), multivitamin supplements have been overtaking sales of drugs for ailments such as diabetes, including Glycomet-GP (USV), Human Mixtard (Novo Nordisk), and Lantus (Sanofi), which dominate the retail market.

Way back in April, while a strong momentum was noticed in chronic therapy drugs with sales of cardiac products up 26.9%, other chronic therapy products such as vitamins grew 75.8%, while anti-diabetes drugs was up by 13.1%.