India medicine sales to increase 9.4% by 2029

Telemedicine service is expected to prevail in the coming years.

A Fitch Solutions report has forecast medicine sales in India will experience a 10-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4%, reaching $67.4b by 2029. The market was valued at $27.41b in 2019, seeing a rise of 14.4% on the previous year.

The forecast was backed by India government’s announcement of the National Digital Health Mission on 15 August, providing every citizen a unique health ID, digitised health records, as well as a registry of doctors and health facilities. The initiative is slated to provide efficiency, accessibility, inclusiveness, security and save time and money in meeting the healthcare needs of the world's second-most populous country.

The government has launched several initiatives, includingDigital India and Aadhaar, with support from the private sector. All these initiatives are making ways to create mobile apps, adopt telemedicine, and set up innovation centres, the report noted.

Though telemedicine and other digital healthcare services are uprising in the country, the growth still remains slow, as most of the people reside in rural areas. Fitch Solutions also said that automation and digitalisation carry a significant risk of hacks and security breaches and that all the components of the service may not fit together.