Cipla, Ipca Lab, Zydus Life to benefit most from drug price rise: Analysts

The recent price hike, analysts said, brings some respite for the industry facing multiple headwinds such as steep raw inflation, price erosion in the US market and higher freight costs.

The effects of inflation have spilled over to several industries with many of them forced to raise prices to stave off rising cost pressures. With this, even essential medicines are set to become costlier from April 1 as the national drug price regulator has allowed companies to hike prices of scheduled drugs by up to 10.8 per cent, the highest ever in the last 10 years.

Scheduled drugs (17 per cent of the domestic pharma market sales) fall under the national list of essential medicines (NLEM), the prices of which are directly capped by the government and are raised annually