Pharmas gain from your weight

AHMEDABAD: Your fat loss is revenue gain for pharma companies. As obesity is fast becoming major concern in developing countries, sales of lifestyle related drugs have shot up in the last few years in India. According ORG-MARG, in 2006-2007 the sales of anti-obesity drugs (prescribed by doctors) only has grown by around 44% compared to 2005-2006. It was limited to only Rs 15 crore and Rs 16 crore in 2003-04 and 2004-05, respectively. This does not include sale of over-the-counter anti-obesity drugs.

Though the market for anti-obesity drugs is still small (Rs 25 crore), the industry believes that it will grow with people becoming more aware about their physical appearance.

Pharma companies are now cashing on the growing demand for lifestyle disease. To tap the growing market, the pharma majors are coming up with newer products. While Torrent pharma announced Rimonabant, an anti-obesity molecule under the brand name Rimoslim, Zydus Cadilla too has announced Slimona, anti-obesity drug based on the same molecule.

Several studies in India have shown that changes in dietary patterns, physical activity levels, lifestyles associated with affluence and migration to urban areas are related to increasing frequencies of obesity and the risk of diseases, such as coronary heart disease and diabetes.

The risk of obesity in India is highest in 20% of the population that consumes 80% of visible dietary fat. According to the Nutrition Foundation of India (NFI), a food-policy NGO, there are an estimated 45% overweight women and 29% overweight men in urban India. According to some school surveys in Indian cities, 30% of adolescents from India’s higher economic groups are overweight.

Experts feel that significant increase in the consumption of fats and energy dense foods with a concurrent reduction in physical activity has led to an alarming increase in obesity in India.

“Obesity is increasingly making people prone to heart attacks, strokes and hypertension,” says Dr Keyur Parikh, a cardiologist at Heart Care Clinic. “Lifestyle related diseases is a very grave situation. The bomb is just waiting to explode,” he says.

According to the experts the situation is threatening as more teenagers are increasingly becoming obese. Dr Ramesh Goyal, consultant diabetologist at Apollo Hospitals says, “Obesity is causing disease like diabetes in children which is a cause of concern.”