However, Ranbaxy has been ranked third in terms of growth and market share after Glaxo-Wellcome and Cipla for cumulative 8-month period ended August 2000. These are findings of the C-Marc survey of prescription trend of top pharmaceutical companies.

During the period Ranbaxy's 12 prescription drug products have entered the top 150 Indian pharmaceutical selling brands ranked by ORG.

These include Sporidex which is ranked 5th and contributes Rs 63.74 crore to Ranbaxy's turnover, Ciphran (ranked 7th) contributing Rs 61.21 crore to turnover. Revital is ranked 19th and has an annual revenue of Rs 42.20 crore, Roscillin (ranked 66th) with revenues of Rs 26.55 crore and Zanocin (ranked 81st) with a turnover of Rs 24.31 crore.

Ranbaxy's multinutrient Riconia has been the fastest growing prescription drug has grown rapidly from a rank of over 250 to the current rank of 143 and annually contributes close to Rs 15 crore to its turnover. It is growing at a pace of 142 per cent on a moving annual total (MAT) basis.

Glaxo-Wellcome with 72,942 prescription drugs having a market share of 5.50 per cent for 8-month period ended August 2000 is on top of the list. Cipla stands at second spot with 51845 prescription drugs having a market share of 3.91 per cent followed by Ranbaxy with 47,436 prescription drugs and a market share of 3.58 per cent.

Among others, Dr Reddy's has been consistently increasing prescription share, while Cipla after losing share has now shown positive growth in July-August 2000, says the C-Marc survey. Pharma companies like Glaxo-Wellcome, Torrent, Nicholas Piramal, Hoechst Marion Russel and Unichem have shown a negative growth and as a result, growth in the 8-month period has come down to less than 2 per cent.

For Ranbaxy, growth in prescription drugs has been driven by pharma and Rexcel - pharma through Riconia and other new products and Rexcel through Mox and other new products.

Ranbaxy has five marketing arms. Of these, Rexcel, pharma marketing and Solus have shown a growth of 19.7 per cent, 16.5 per cent, and 6.1 per cent.