Dolo 650 maker says drug part of Covid treatment, denies 'freebie' charges

In paracetamol market, Dolo's share rose to 24% from 15% pre-Covid-19

Bengaluru-based Micro Labs — the makers of popular paracetamol brand Dolo — said the use of 650 mg paracetamol as first line of Covid-19 treatment was a part of the national treatment guidelines issued by the Centre and thus became the drug of choice among doctors.

Micro Labs further said there was no specific reason to promote the 650 mg variant over the 500 mg as both are covered under price control. Speaking to Business Standard, Micro Labs executive VP Jayaraj Govindaraju strongly refuted charges of spending Rs 1,000 crore on handing out freebies to doctors to promote its paracetamol brand Dolo. “We have spent Rs 1,000 crore as marketing expenses across all our 14 divisions over several years, and not on marketing Dolo during the pandemic,” Govindaraju said.

Govindaraju said the Union government’s Covid-19 guidelines included administering paracetamol 650 mg to patients. In fact, the latest guidelines on home isolation of mild and asymptomatic cases released by the Union health ministry in January 2022 ask to administer paracetamol 650 mg to patients four times a day if fever is not controlled.

In a Supreme Court hearing, the Federation of Medical & Sales Representatives’ Association of India (FMRAI) alleged that while the price of 500 mg paracetamol is controlled, the higher doses are out of price control. Legal reporting website Livelaw.in reported that FMRAI legal counsel argued in the apex court that in order to increase profits Micro labs had distributed freebies among doctors to prescribe a dosage of 650mg, which he referred to as an “irrational dose combination”.

Govindaraju said the price of Dolo 650 mg is Rs 2 per tablet, and it is not a high-margin product. It became a high-volume product during the pandemic, and Micro Labs had to expand its manufacturing capacity up to three times its original capacity to meet demand. “We were making Dolo at our Sikkim site, and eventually started making this drug also at Pondicherry and Bengaluru plants to meet demand. We had to sacrifice manufacturing other drugs to produce the required volumes of paracetamol,” he added. “The question of giving high value freebies to doctors to prescribe this does not arise,” he added.

Sheetal Sapale, president, marketing, AWACS, a research and analytics firm, said Dolo contributed to about 7 per cent of the company turnover in pre-Covid times. This contribution has moved up to around 14 per cent now. “In the paracetamol market, Dolo had a market share of 15 per cent in pre-Covid-19 times; this has increased to 24 per cent. It has overtaken Calpol, the market share which has remained 20-22 per cent in the past five years,” she explained.

Stockists said during the pandemic, supplies of other key brands like Calpol (GSK Pharma) and Crocin (GSK Consumer) were intermittently hit, leading to more demand for Dolo-650.

Sandeep Nangia, president, retail distribution, Chemist Alliance, Delhi, said the simple and catchy name, too, helped sales. “Now there are other brands which come with 650 mg strength. But Dolo is a simple name, and customers can remember it. Also, there was a huge buzz on social media with memes floating around on Dolo. That actually helped sales pick up further,” Nangia said.