Sanofi India, which plans to demerge the consumer healthcare business into a separate subsidiary, has seen its consumer brands clock faster growth compared to the pharmaceutical brands.
Sanofi marquee brands like Allegra grew 22.2 per cent as of April 2023 in terms of moving annual turnover (MAT) over last year, data from market research firm Pharmarack AWACS shows. MAT, which represents turnover for the last twelve months, in 2022 grew almost 24 per cent year on year (YoY). In comparison, Sanofi’s popular insulin brand Lantus declined 7.1 per YoY as of MAT April 2023. In 2022, it grew by only 3.1 per cent.
Centrum Broking said in February Lantus sales were impacted after it was included in the revised National List of Essential Medicine (NLEM) 2022. Lantus, currently priced at Rs 794 (100 IU 3ml injection), comes at a premium over the average of similar brands priced at around Rs 730. Centrum said that this implies that Sanofi will have to take at least 8 percent hit on its pricing of Lantus.
Other anti-diabetic brands like Cetapin, Amaryl, too, have clocked slow growth in the past few years.
The company divested its anti-microbial brand Soframycin and anti-bacterial cream Sofradex, Sofracort (antibacterial eye and ear drops), Soframycin-Tulle (antibacterial cream) for India and Sri Lanka markets to topical products manufacturer Encube Ethicals in November last year for Rs 125 crore or so.
The company has renewed its focus on the diabetes franchise. “Sanofi’s leading therapy of Diabetes continued to do well, led by renewed marketing efforts nationally for Toujeo Insulin which is seeing better traction (new cartridge launched, 300 IU dosage),” Centrum noted in February. Toujeo has been doing well too: from sales of just about Rs 22 crore as of MAT April 2019, it scaled up to Rs 87 crore in MAT April 2023.
