Anti-gastric drugs claimed the biggest share of the Tk 106 billion domestic medicine market as spicy, adulterated foodstuffs wrecked many stomachs with ulcerating ailments.
Industry-insiders said nearly 15 per cent of the pharmaceutical market is dominated by medicines meant for treating gastrointestinal disorders.
This accounts for totally retail sales data, excluding institutional sales.
In the 12-month figures up to last June, the market of anti-ulcer drugs stood at Tk 15.43 billion-nearly 18 per cent up from the corresponding previous amount.
This reckoning has been done by IMS Health, the US-based world's number-one pharma intelligence.
The anti-ulcer market is followed by cephalosporins, an antibiotic group, with market share of Tk 9.9 billion, according to the IMS Health, which has operation in Bangladesh.
However, leading drug manufacturers and physicians said the anti-ulcer has been surprisingly ruling the country's pharmaceutical market due mainly to consumption of adulterated foodstuffs and lack of discipline in eating habits.
They identified consumption of different types of spices also as one of the main reasons behind the boost to this segment of the medicine market.
The top four drugs on the pharma market belong to the anti-ulcers, with their combined share of Tk 5.3 billion.
Seclo, an omeprazole molecule, of Square Pharma stood out as highest-sold product among all drugs in the country. Its market size is Tk 2.08 billion.
Seclo sales grew more than 22 per cent in a year beginning July 2013-indicating an alarming rise in the number of people taking to the medicine for the bane stemming from rampant tainting of eats with toxic preservatives.
An official at the Square Pharma firm told the FE that Seclo is one of the fastest-growing products in the country.
"Seclo market has grown nearly three times in the last five years. This anti-ulcerant drug had market share worth Tk 740 million in 2008-09," he said.
Pantonix of Incepta Pharmaceutical, belonging to the generic group pantoprazole, emerged as the second-highest-sold product. Some Tk 1.09 billion is in its share of the market hotcakes.
Maxpro, a product of Renata Limited and produced by the molecule of esomeprazole, is the third-most-sold drug in the country with a market size of Tk 1.07 billion.
Losectil, a product of Eskayef Bangladesh, ranked fourth in all pharma products with market size of Tk 1.06 billion.
Ranitidine, comparatively an old molecule, is gradually getting phased out of the market. It grew in the period under review by more than 5.0 per cent.
Khan Mohammed Abul Kalam Azad, an expert in medicine at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said more than 12 per cent of the country's population has been suffering from peptic ulcer and 12 per cent have other stomach diseases.
"Besides, 30 percent patients require taking anti-gastric and anti-ulcer drugs as a supplement to other drugs," he told the FE recently.
"We even overuse this type of drugs, sometimes without a physician's advice. It is one of the reasons behind this surge."
He said consuming adulterated foods and eating habits are also contributing to widespread use of such drugs in the country.
Nazmul Hassan, chief executive officer of Beximco, told the FE: "The use of anti-ulcer drugs has outweighed the use of anti-biotic medicines in recent years."
Momenul Hoque, managing director of leading pharmaceutical company General Pharmaceuticals, said people usually are overusing this type of drugs-sometimes without physicians' advice.
He also had a similar view that consuming adulterated foods and eating habits were behind the widespread use of such drugs in a country where the rate of literacy is not so good.
jasimharoon@yahoo.com
