Little-known painkillers gained high profit in pandemic

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Legacy brands such as Dolo and Calpol were not the only painkillers to gain popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Drugs falling in the entire pain category showed “an unusually high growth” for January 2022, according to data from market research firm AWACS Pharmasofttech.

For a majority of cases in the third wave, treatment was mostly focused on easing the symptoms such as pain, cough and cold without addressing the basic cause of the disease, Sheetal Sapale, the president of marketing at AWACS pointed out.

That helped many little-known brands see a meteoric rise in demand. Some of them include Aristo Pharma’s Ultramol RF, Fresenius’s Freeflex Kabimol and FDC’s 99F. Vaccination drives also helped boost painkiller sales.

“Dolo has been inevitably suggested to all the recipients in case of any pain or discomfort. Legacy brands like Dolo and Calpol have almost doubled their turnover, leveraging the Covid opportunity well,” Sapale told DH.

A closer look at the painkiller makers’ moving annual turnover (MAT) numbers by AWACS showed a 62 per cent rise in January 2022 versus the year-ago period. Interestingly, the pandemic helped some of these smaller brands that weren’t previously available in pharma retail stores, find buyers too. That list includes Aristo Pharma’s Ultramol RF, Fresenius’s Freeflex Kabimol and FDC’s 99F.

“This is a one-time thing as it is driven by Covid. The initial indication is a mild fever and when people needed it, they would buy anything. This is a result of panic-buying”, said Abdulkader Puranwala, Vice-President at Elara Capital.

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