Depth over breadth: Piramal Consumer Healthcare takes a leaf out of the modern FMCG playbook

Ponugoti, who took the helm at Piramal in January 2025, brings decades of consumer healthcare experience to the role. He previously held various leadership positions across the Indian and Asia-Pacific markets for consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, which owns major household brands such as Whisper and Pampers.

Piramal Consumer retails products under 25 brands. Its ‘power brands’ include Lacto Calamine (skincare), CIR (adult diapers), Little's (wellness products for children), Tetmosol (skin infections), Polycrol (antacid medication), and i-range (women’s wellness). These brands account for about half of Piramal Consumer Healthcare’s business today, compared to 42% in FY23. “We believe we can make our power brands into mega brands in the coming years,” Ponugoti said.

This shift is reflected in the company's streamlined product pipeline. Piramal introduced 31 new products in FY26, down from 63 in FY23, prioritizing impact over volume. “Innovation is a revenue growth engine for us,” he said, noting that new product launches yield a high success rate and drive 13% to 17% of total revenue.

Ponugoti said the company's priority is ensuring all new products are deeply relevant to consumers. “That also means we sunset innovations that are not doing well,” he said, adding that success rates remain high. “Our success rate on new products and innovations that we launch is upwards of 80%, which is a good place to be in.”

To that end, the company is focusing on premiumizing its existing portfolio and expanding into adjacent product categories. For example, Lacto Calamine has moved beyond its traditional skin-soothing image to offer cleansers, moisturizers, face washes, sunscreens, and serums. While oil control remains its core proposition, the brand has evolved to tap into modern consumer trends like Korean skincare and science-backed ingredients like retinol and vitamin C.

This positioning is critical as consumer goods and pharmaceutical companies pivot toward the ‘science-backed, better-for-you’ segment. For instance, Hindustan Unilever acquired a 90.5% stake in the parent company of premium D2C skincare brand Minimalist for ₹2,955 crore, betting on an ingredient-led approach over traditional beauty marketing.

India's beauty and personal care market is projected to surge from $23 billion to $40 billion by 2030, according to Redseer Strategy Consultants, triggering a fierce battle for shelf space across pharmacies, cosmetic stores, and general trade.

Piramal Consumer Healthcare has seen significant growth across online channels. “A third of our business comes from e-commerce today. More than half of that is from quick commerce,” Ponugoti said. The company also maintains a traditional retail presence in over 200,000 chemist stores, with a total network of 450,000 chemist stores.

Across its segments, the company is implementing a targeted marketing approach. Ponugoti noted that Piramal has doubled its influencer engagements over the past year across its portfolio, though he did not disclose the exact figures. In comparison, FMCG major Hindustan Unilever taps more than 30,000 influencers to market its products.

The company’s latest initiative consolidates its women’s healthcare portfolio under a single identity: i-choose. This range includes period panties, menstrual cups, and pregnancy test kits. Its star product in the segment, the i-pill emergency contraceptive, remains on the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority’s (NPPA) essential drugs list, which caps prices. This price control mechanism, implemented in March 2024, impacted its FY25 revenues, the company said.

India’s over-the-counter drug market is expected grow by more than 60% to ₹98,000 crore by 2030 from ₹60,000 crore in 2024, EY-Parthenon wrote in a January 2026 report.

In an April 2026 report, Motilal Oswal valued Piramal Pharma on a sum-of-the-parts (SoTP) basis. The brokerage applied an EV/Ebitda multiple of 19 for the CDMO segment, 11 for the complex hospital generics business, and 13 for consumer healthcare.

Neethi Lisa Rojan is a senior correspondent focusing on the consumer goods and retail sector working from Mumbai for Mint since 2026. She has been a journalist for a little over two years with Moneycontrol and The Morning Context. She has covered the consumer and healthcare sectors in earlier roles. She was a double gold medallist during her bachelor’s from Mahatma Gandhi University Kerala and post-graduation from Pondicherry University. With a background in commerce and journalism, she brings a sharp analytical lens to stories on India’s fast-evolving consumer goods and retail sector.With an academic background in business administration and a keen eye for financial statement analysis, she bridges the gap between corporate data and compelling narrative journalism. Her reporting is characterized by a focus on how evolving consumer behaviours and regulatory changes impact India's largest mass-market brands. She is a keen learner with diplomas in international business, human rights and journalism. She specialized in business journalism at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. When she is not looking into shopping carts, you can find her explaining the latest conspiracy theory.