MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS Economic Review Global Economy: Developments in the world economy in 2014 have been something of mixed bag. Overall, the global economy did not have a stellar year. The growth, which remained around 3 per cent did not pick up on recent years, stayed well below the pace of expansion enjoyed over an extended period up to 2008. The major reason behind the modest growth of global economy in 2014 is the the slump in the world's 2nd and 3rd largest economies i.e. China and Japan. The euro-zone crisis continued to unravel, bringing the continent closer to disinflation as growth stagnated. Largely due to weaker-than-expected global activity in the first half of 2014, the growth forecast for the world economy has been revised downward to 3.3 percent for this year, 0.4 percentage point lower than in the April 2014 World Economic Outlook (WEO). The global growth projection for 2015 was lowered to 3.8 percent. International trade growth was unusually low for yet another year. For decades before the crisis, growth in trade outstripped GDP growth, usually by a big margin. But over the past three years that has changed, with trade expanding at or below output growth. This year it is expected to struggle to keep pace with GDP Indian Economy: The Indian economy in 2014-15 has emerged as one of the largest economies with a promising economic outlook on the back of controlled inflation, rise in domestic demand, increase in investments, decline in oil prices and reforms among others. On the demand side, growth of private final consumption increased to 7.6 per cent in 2014-15, from 6.5 per cent in 2013-14 as per advanced estimates. The fixed capital formation in the economy has picked up growth but lost share in aggregate demand. Gross fixed capital formation has increase 3.0 per cent in 2013-14 to 4.1 per cent in 2014-15. Global Pharmaceutical Sector Global spending on medicines is forecast to reach nearly $1.3 trillion by 2018, an increase of about 30 percent over the 2013 level, according to a report by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. This level of growth-a compound annual growth rate of 4-7 percent on a constant currency basis-will be slightly higher than the 5.2 percent recorded over the past five years, as the introduction of new specialty medicines and increased accessibility for patients coincides with lower impacts from patent expiries in developed markets. Drug spending in Europe will remain limited by a weak economic recovery, low population growth, and continued efforts to reduce public debt, including healthcare and drug spend. Southeast and East Asia will grow at twice the global average, driven by population growth, rising incomes and improved access to healthcare. North America is said to continue to contribute the largest proportion to growth, but Asia seems to be gaining. Indian Pharmaceutical Industry The Indian pharmaceutical industry is estimated to grow at 20 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years, as per India Ratings, a Fitch Group company. Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities registered with US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as on March 2014 was the highest at 523 for any country outside the US. We expect the domestic pharma market to grow at 10-12 per cent in FY15 as compared to 9 per cent in FY14, as per a recent report from Centrum Broking. The domestic pharma growth rate was 11.9 per cent in October 2014, highlighted the India Brand Equity Foundation report. Road Ahead The Indian pharma market size is expected to grow to US$ 85 billion by 2020. The growth in Indian domestic market will be on back of increasing consumer spending, rapid urbanisation, raising healthcare insurance and so on. Going forward, better growth in domestic sales will depend on the ability of companies to align their product portfolio towards chronic therapies for diseases such as such as cardiovascular, anti-diabetes, anti-debrssants and anti-cancers are on the rise. |