Mumbai, Jan 9 (IANS): The Indian pharmaceutical market (IPM) grew 8.5 per cent year-on-year (YoY) during December 2020, due to volume and price growth as well as new launches, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said in a report.

Accordingly, the report cited a YoY volume growth of 0.3 per cent, price growth of 5 per cent and products launches at 3.1 per cent during December 2020.

The agency opined the month-on-month growth in India formulations market during December 2020 was led by a rebound in volumes due to a pick-up in prescribers' interactions with patients and medical representatives.

"The growth in November 2020 was impacted due to the festivities and the threat of a second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, leading to patients seeking medical help only in case of urgency.

"During 3QFY21, IPM grew 6.4 per cent YoY, led by a volume decline of 1.9 per cent YoY, price growth of 4.9 per cent and products launches at 3.4 per cent.

"IPM reported total sales of INR130.9 billion for December 2020. On moving average total (MAT) for the past 12 months basis, the growth was 3.1 per cent for December 2020," the Ind-Ra report said.

Besides, the report pointed out that acute therapies such as anti-infectives, gastro and vitamins witnessed YoY growth of 5.2 per cent, 16.2 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively, during December 2020.

In addition, a growth outperformance was observed in chronic therapies with cardiac and anti-diabetic growing 14.9 per cent and 9.9 per cent, respectively.