Sunday, August 26, 2007

Should investors take a contrarian call on pharma?

The pharma sector, beaten down by litigation costs and a lackluster performance for sometime, has been out of market favour. However, global consulting firm McKinsey is bullish on the sector going forward.

The Indian pharmaceutical market, it said, is poised to triple to USD 20 billion by 2015 from the current USD 6.5 billion. McKinsey also expects the domestic pharmaceutical market to grow at 12 % annually and touch USD 20 billion by 2015. The present generics industry will continue to dominate the pharma market and patented products will constitute close to 10% of the market in the next 10 years, it added.

To bolster its claims, McKinsey has named several factors such as large private sector
investments in health infrastructure, increase in the number of hospital beds, rise in the number of physicians, greater penetration of health insurance, rising prevalence of chronic diseases and aggressive market penetration by smaller companies that will play a key role in the growth of the domestic pharmaceutical market. By 2015, India will add USD 50 million middle-class households to its existing middle-class population and that could be one of the key factors for the domestic pharmaceutical market to grow to USD 20 billion

However, it cautions that the pharmaceutical industry's concerns on drug pricing policies and product patent regulations could be the dampeners to ensure the 12 % growth in domestic growth.

So, should
investors take a contrarian call on the pharma sector?

Vipul Shah of JM
Financial Services feels that the sector looks promising in the long-term. "I do not carry strong views on pharma in the short run. But the sector in the longer term definitely has a lot of opportunities in sub-segments. That's something every investor has to look into and pick up," he added

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