Sales of Complementary and Alternative Medicines to Jump in Asia-Pacific in Near

Posted by Pramod Arya on April 7th, 2022

While the advent of advanced technologies has undoubtedly mitigated the necessity of physical labor in many tasks, it has also made sedentary lifestyles extremely common across the world. An average workday during the 18th century involved constant physical movement from one place to another, the carrying of heavy loads, and high physical exertion in many tasks, while these days, the most exerting physical activity people usually do in offices is taking a short walk to the nearest coffee machine.

This drastic fall in physical movement of the body has made people extremely vulnerable to various diseases and ailments such as insomnia, obesity, stress, and hypertension. Moreover, the growing prevalence of stress-filled lifestyles, due to the increasing peer pressure and the rising popularity of social media, is pushing up the incidence of anxiety and depression across the globe. As per Our World in Data, 3.4% and 3.8% of the global population suffered from anxiety and depression, respectively, in 2017.

According to the findings of the World Health Organization (WHO), the total number of people in the world diagnosed with diabetes increased from 108 million to 422 million from 1980 to 2014. Furthermore, the organization reported that diabetes claimed the lives of as many as 1.6 million people all over the world in 2016. The ballooning incidence of these diseases is boosting the demand for complementary and alternative medicines and therapies across the world.

Besides the aforementioned factors, the high popularity of complementary and alternative medicines and therapies in many countries is also fueling the sales of these drugs. In several countries, there is a rich diversity of alternative drugs and treatment procedures, on account of their rich history and tradition. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), around 80% of the people across the world depend on traditional drugs for managing medical conditions and diseases such as gastrointestinal disorders, cold, and cough.

Due to the above-mentioned factors, the sales of complementary and alternative drugs are rising rapidly all over the world. This is, in turn, causing the expansion of the global complementary and alternative medicines market. As a result, the revenue generated by the market is predicted to grow from 2.0 billion to 1.8 billion from 2018 to 2024. The market is also predicted to progress at a CAGR of 6.0% from 2019 to 2024.

Based on type, the complementary and alternative medicines market is divided into mind-body intervention-based, energy-based, manipulative body-based, and nature-based. Amongst these, the nature-based category will register the fastest growth in the market in the future years, as per the forecast of P&S Intelligence, a market research company based in India. This would be because of the low side-effects of homeopathic drugs, the growing requirement for the management and prevention of various diseases, and the highly affordable prices of CAM medicines.