Abbott reinforces will to fight odds and retain Indian Market

“Our focus in India is to manufacture some of our key brands locally. We have also invested $75 million to set up a green-field manufacturing facility in India to increase local procurement,” Amal Kelshikar, country head, nutrition, Abbott India told HT.

The company’s top OTC brands in nutrition category includes PediaSure, Similac, NeoSure and SimMom among others.

Other pharma giants such as Sun Pharma and Glaxo SmithKline are finding, nutrition is among the fastest growing businesses in India.

“Our nutrition business has grown well over the past three years, registering a consistent double-digit growth year-on-year. This growth has come at a time under conditions which led to some slowing down of the market,” said Kelshikar. He did not give absolute growth figures.

In an attempt to localise product offerings, Abbott India has engaged its nutrition research centre in Bengaluru to work with its manufacturing plant in Gujarat . The centre focuses on product design, development and delivery specifically for the Indian consumer, with emphasis on local tastes and preferences as well as nutritional needs.

IMS Health data records the organised nutrition market in India at Rs 6,433 crore in 2015. According to the health data factors such as increasing incidence of non-communicable diseases, high numbers of premature births, anaemia among pregnant women, toddlers trailing on developmental milestones etc have created a need for specific, clinically proven nutrition products.