Natco Pharma plans new product launches

Hyderabad: Drug major Natco Pharma will diversify its product portfolio in the domestic market as it's planning to make up for a drop in business of some of its prominent product categories.

The drug maker's oncology segment suffered in the last financial year due to pricing controls from the government, and its Hepatitis-C business continued to decline due to reduction in market size.

VC Nannapaneni, Natco Pharma CMD in the company's annual report 2019-20, said: "We are planning for new product launches in the non-oncology segment to mitigate the impact of the Hepatitis-C market decline.

Oncology continues to be the company's most important segment in the domestic market. Currently, it has 33 products in the cancer treatment drug segment. In spite of these factors that caused the domestic business downturn, the drug maker launched eight products during the last financial year and continued to retain its market position in key segments."

Also, during the fourth quarter, the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in cancer patients postponing their hospital visits and chemotherapy procedures, the company said.

All these factors collectively pushed the business to decline during the year, it added. On the domestic business front, the company is cautiously optimistic about its commercial foray of the crop health sciences division in the near future, he added.