Hyderabad: City-based pharma major Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL) on Friday launched Optidoz, a drug for the treatment of hypertension, in the Indian market. "Optidoz is a single pill combination of three anti-hypertensive drugs (Amlodipine 2.5 mg, Telmisartan 20mg and Hydrochlorothiazide 6.25mg) with optimal (half of standard) dose of individual drugs," a company official said.
The drug falls under the cardiovascular segment that fetches DRL around Rs 200-250 crore sales in India. Apart from cardiovascular segment, DRL would be focusing on areas such as diabetes, gastroenterology, oncology, urology and nephrology to boost its domestic business, DRL senior vice-president and India business head for generics Alok Sonig said.
"Around 32% of adult Indian population suffers from high blood pressure and we are looking at tapping 50 -70 million of these total 200 million patients. In the next five to ten years, the product could see sales north of Rs 100 crore," Sonig said.
He pointed out that he expects the company's generic business in India to grow by 8-10% this fiscal. The company along with other pharma players in the country has been under pressure due to the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) and the number of drug launches too have been less this fiscal, he explained. According to him, DPCO had
eroded 5% of DRL's Indian revenue as nearly 15 to 20 products' prices had to be revised.
DPCO is a government's order under the essential commodities act that allows it to fix the prices of essential drugs and their formulations.
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