Scope for femoston in India: perceptions about hormone replacement therapy; Abbot India Limited

Abstract

Medical opinion has always projected menopause as a trouble because of its association with a variety of acute and chronic conditions, both physical and psychological, ranging from hot flushes to more severe cardiovascular and bone diseases. Therefore, in most developed countries hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is often recommended to prevent the distressing symptoms associated with menopause. The post menopausal HRT market in India is a very underdeveloped therapy area. Sales in this country were just 360 million (MAT Feb 2012), although they have been growing. It saw a minor increase (2%) from February, 2011 to February, 20121 . In fact, the sales of HRT have seen a sharp decline worldwide in recent years as a result of safety concerns raised by the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI)2 study in 2002. However, the HRT for menopausal symptoms market has been slowly recovering from the Women’s Health Initiative in 2002—which questioned the therapy’s safety. We undertook a study to know about the perception of post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy among the physicians in India. The results were as expected. Most of the physicians were concerned about the safety issues related to the usage of HRT. Therefore, the challenge for any company to enter this market is to rebuild the confidence in the safety of the products among specialists, general practitioners and other physicians as well as the general public in order to drive market growth. The aim of this report is to provide an insight into the underdeveloped Hormone replacement Therapy market in India. It will probe into the recent trends and will lay out implications for the near future. The major purpose of the report is to help Abbott with the future launches in the HRT area, especially, determining the feasibility to launch Femoston in India.