Hospitals to recover from sluggish Q3; diagnostics growth rate at pre-Covid levels.
Analysts feel that revenue and ebitda growth in the pharmaceutical sector would be in the range of 14-21 per cent in the fourth quarter of the 2022-23 fiscal. However, revenue growth is flat sequentially, and they see a slight dip in Ebitda due to price control and field force addition.
Domestic market growth is strong for the quarter at 11 per cent, with Alkem, Cipla and Torrent Pharma likely to be the top performers in this segment, felt analysts at Nuvama Research.
Kotak Institutional Securities pointed out that in a relief to the sector, pharma firms have been allowed to take a maximum price hike of 12.12 per cent in FY24 for the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) portfolio. “Over FY 2020-22, pricing had contributed 400-500 bps to overall India pharma market growth; we have witnessed a slightly higher contribution of 540 bps from pricing in FY2023, aided by the previous year’s 10.8 per cent NLEM price hike, amid prevail.