Gujarat's 36 pharma brands among India's top 300 cures

Of the 300 top medicine brands with the highest sales in India, 36 are owned and marketed by Gujarat-based companies.

This remarkable fact is revealed by a list of the country's top-selling medicine brands, included in an ORG-IMS report. The list has been compiled on the basis of the moving annual total (MAT) sales for the 12-month period ending April 30, 2009.

According to the report, the 36 brands marketed by the state-based pharmaceutical companies had posted collective sales of Rs1,260 crore during the 12-month period. The figure represents a 15% growth over the figures for recorded in the corresponding period last year.

Most of the 36 brands are marketed by some leading pharmaceutical companies of the state such as Zydus Cadila, Torrent Pharma, Sun Pharma and Alembic. They are used in the treatment of a variety of ailments, including gastrointestinal diseases, heart disease and some common infections.

With sales of Rs78 crore, 'Azithral' of Alembic leads the list of top-selling brands from Gujarat. It is used to treat bacterial infections. 'Althrocin' and 'Roxid' are the two other brands of Alembic which have sales of Rs72 crore and Rs53 crore, respectively. Cadila Pharma's 'Aciloc' and Zydus Cadila's 'Aten' also figure in the list with sales of Rs71 crore each.

"We are quite strong in medicines meant for treatment of infections," said Pranav Amin, executive director, Alembic Ltd. "And we are strengthening our position in medicines meant for treatment of lifestyle diseases. After the acquisition of Dabur's non-oncology wing, we have been focusing mainly on cardiac and diabetic care products, and on expanding our marketing network."