Indian healthcare market to touch $372 bn by 2022: ASSOCHAM

The Dollar Business Bureau

Indian healthcare market is expected to increase threefold to touch $372 billion by 2022, registering a growth of 22% annually, according to a study.

“India’s healthcare market may see threefold rise as its size in value terms is likely to reach $372 billion by 2022 from the level of $110 billion as of 2016 thereby clocking a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22%, said a statement by ASSOCHAM on Sunday.

The findings are based on a paper on ‘Indian Healthcare Sector - An Overview’, jointly prepared by ASSOCHAM and the research firm RNCOS.

On the reasons for the likely growth, the paper noted that increasing demand for affordable healthcare delivery system in India due to rising healthcare costs, growing occurrence of lifestyle diseases, emergence of telemedicine, advancement in technology, rapid health insurance penetration, and mergers and acquisitions to reach untapped markets are driving the Indian healthcare market.

In addition, Government’s initiatives such as e-health along with tax benefits, incentives and a number of forthcoming regulatory policies are also driving the healthcare market in the country, it pointed out.

Factors such as rising elderly population, growth in medical tourism and continuing drop in the cost of medical services will push the medical devices market, which was valued at $4 billion as of 2016 and is expected to touch the $11 billion mark by 2022, recording a CAGR of 15%, the study stated.

However, the study said that the imports account for around 75% of medical devices market in India.

The impact of Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be positive on the healthcare market, specifically on the pharmaceutical sector, it noted.

“GST would not only streamline taxation structure but lead to ease of doing business by minimising cascading effect of many taxes applied to a product, rationalise supply chain, enable flow of seamless tax credit, lower manufacturing cost, reduce cost of technology and make healthcare affordable,” it said.  

Indian pharmaceutical market is the world’s third biggest market in volume terms and 13th biggest in value terms.