Homeopathic medicine firm Schwabe has chalked out an aggressive growth plan in India which include, putting homeopathic drugs on chemists' shelves and tying up with cosmetic and health product retailers.
Avinash Mandale, marketing and sales manager for Dr Willmar Schwabe Pvt Ltd, said the company plans to capture a 25 per cent market share in three years through tie-ups with various chemists. "We will not promote brands in these shops, but homeopathy as an alternative medicine," Mandale said. "We want every allopathic pharmacist to start stocking homeopathic medicines," he said.
There are around 1.2 lakh chemist shops in the country. But only 12,000 shops stock homeo medicines. The size of the allopathic market is around Rs 12,000 crore while that of homeopathy is around Rs 280 crore and that of ayurvedic, around Rs 4,800 crore. "We face a challenge from both the allopathic as well as ayurvedic sectors," he said.
Mandale said the company was in talks with beauty and health shops such as Health & Glow, Life Spring and Subhiksha for stocking their products. He said the company recently set up a state-of-the-art plant worth Rs 35 crore in Noida, near Delhi. It already has around 28 showrooms across the country with the biggest at Bangalore. These shops stock Schwabe products and has homeopathy doctors for treating patients. The company also runs five mobile clinics. In another three years, Schwabe plans to increase the number of showrooms to 100.
Mandale said 75 per cent of the products are made in the Indian plant. Its largest-selling medicine, Gingo Biloba - an anti-dementia drug - is also made at the Nodia plant, he said.
Schwabe India, which employs around 90 employees, manufactures biochemic tissue salts and biocombinations and single remedies like mother tinctures, dilutions, trituration tablets and biochemic medicines as well as OTC medicines for common ailments. Worldwide, the German-based company employs around 2,000 and has a turnover of around $345 million.
