Pakistan’s Multivitamin market is booming — so why are the Big Pharma giants missing in action?

Nutrifactor and Herbiotics dominate Pakistan’s fastest-growing supplement market with colourful bottles and aggressive marketing, while MNCs and major local pharma companies remain mysteriously absent from the race.

By Imran Malik | Health & Pharma Desk | MediaBites.com.pk

Walk into any pharmacy in Lahore, Karachi, or Islamabad today and you will notice something striking. The multivitamin shelf is dominated not by the trusted names of multinational pharmaceutical giants or Pakistan’s largest drug manufacturers. It is owned by two relatively young, aggressively marketed local brands whose colourful, Instagram-worthy packaging catches the eye before anything else does.

Nutrifactor and Herbiotics have quietly pulled off one of Pakistani consumer marketing’s most impressive coups. And the question the entire pharmaceutical industry should be asking is: how did the big players let this happen?

Pakistan’s Multivitamin Market — The Size of the Opportunity

Pakistan’s dietary supplement and multivitamin market has grown significantly over the past decade, driven by rising health awareness, post-COVID nutritional consciousness, growing middle-class disposable income, and aggressive social media marketing by emerging brands.

Industry estimates suggest Pakistan’s nutraceutical and supplement market is currently valued at approximately PKR 15 to 20 billion annually and growing at a rate of 15 to 20 percent year on year. Multivitamins represent one of the fastest-growing segments within that market.

This is not a niche category. This is one of the most commercially attractive opportunities in Pakistan’s entire consumer healthcare landscape.

The Two Brands That Seized the Market

Nutrifactor has built what is arguably Pakistan’s most recognisable supplement brand in under a decade. Its strategy was straightforward and executed brilliantly: bright packaging, wide product range covering everything from basic multivitamins to specialised formulations for hair, skin, energy, and immunity, aggressive digital and social media marketing, pharmacy placement, and price points accessible to Pakistan’s middle-income consumer. The brand has built genuine consumer loyalty and is estimated to hold the largest share of Pakistan’s organised multivitamin market.

Herbiotics followed a similar playbook with an added emphasis on herbal and natural formulations, tapping into the growing Pakistani consumer preference for products perceived as natural or plant-based. Its visual branding, colourful bottles with clean modern design, positioned it as a premium lifestyle product rather than a clinical medicine. Herbiotics has captured a meaningful share of the urban, digitally-connected consumer segment.

Together, these two brands have demonstrated something the rest of the industry apparently did not believe was possible in Pakistan: consumers will actively seek out, research, and loyally repurchase supplement brands if those brands invest in quality, packaging, marketing, and consumer education.

The Giants Who Are Missing the Race

Abbott Pakistan — The Surbex Monopoly Problem

Abbott’s Surbex Z is arguably the most famous multivitamin brand name in Pakistan. It has been in Pakistani pharmacies for decades and carries enormous brand recognition among consumers and doctors alike. But Surbex Z is essentially where Abbott’s multivitamin story begins and ends in Pakistan. Beyond this single product, Abbott has not meaningfully expanded its consumer supplement portfolio to capture the broader market that has exploded around it. In a category growing at 15 to 20 percent annually, a single SKU strategy is not a multivitamin business. It is a missed opportunity.

GSK Pakistan — The Invisible Brand

GlaxoSmithKline operates one of Pakistan’s largest pharmaceutical businesses and does carry a multivitamin product in the market by the name of Theragran Ultra. But as this writer can personally attest, most informed Pakistani consumers, including those who actively seek quality supplements, are genuinely unaware that GSK’s supplement brand exists. This is a marketing failure of remarkable proportions for a company with GSK’s resources, distribution network, and brand credibility. A product that nobody knows about is a product that does not exist in the consumer’s mind.

CCL Pharmaceuticals — The Hidden Department

At a recent LCCI event covered by MediaBites, a senior CCL Pharmaceuticals executive confirmed to this writer that the company does indeed have a dedicated multivitamin and supplement department. CCL is a well-respected Pakistani pharmaceutical company known to most consumers for Pulmonol cough syrup and the diabetes medication Sitamet. But despite operating an entire department focused on supplements, CCL’s multivitamin products are essentially invisible to the Pakistani consumer. They exist on paper and presumably in production, but they are not visible in pharmacies, not marketed digitally, and not part of any consumer conversation about supplements in Pakistan.

READ MORE: Getz Pharma cuts Sem-P (Semaglutide) prices by up to 50% amid rising debate over medicine pricing in Pakistan

Top 20 Pharmaceutical Companies in Pakistan

Multinational Companies Operating in Pakistan:

Abbott Laboratories Pakistan, GlaxoSmithKline Pakistan, Novartis Pakistan, Pfizer Pakistan, Sanofi Pakistan, Roche Pakistan, AstraZeneca Pakistan, Bayer Pakistan, and Searle Pakistan (foreign partnership) are among the leading MNC operations in the country.

Top Local Pharmaceutical Companies:

Getz Pharma, Ferozsons Laboratories, Highnoon Laboratories, CCL Pharmaceuticals, Shaigan Pharmaceuticals, Genome Pharmaceuticals, Macter International, Pacific Pharmaceuticals, Herbion Pakistan, and Medicraft Pakistan represent some of the strongest local players in the industry.

Their Famous Brands — A Quick Reference

Foreign Multivitamin Brands Available in Pakistan

Pakistani consumers actively seeking premium quality supplements are increasingly turning to imported brands available through pharmacies, online retailers, and grey market importers. Brands including Centrum, Vitabiotics (Wellman, Wellwoman), Blackmores, Holland and Barrett ranges, Nature Made, GNC, and Solgar are all sought after by health-conscious Pakistani consumers willing to pay a significant premium for perceived quality assurance.

The very fact that Pakistanis are importing multivitamins at premium prices while domestic pharmaceutical giants sit on unused capacity and unmarketed products tells the complete story of this market failure.

The Core Problem — Marketing Apathy in Big Pharma

The multivitamin and supplement market operates on fundamentally different dynamics from prescription pharmaceutical sales. Prescription drugs are sold to doctors through medical representatives. Supplements are sold directly to consumers through marketing, packaging, digital presence, education, and brand building.

Pakistan’s major pharmaceutical companies, both MNC and local, are structured, incentivised, and culturally oriented around the prescription model. Their marketing departments know how to brief a medical representative. They do not always know how to build a consumer brand.

Nutrifactor and Herbiotics understood consumer brand building from day one. The established giants did not treat it as a priority. The market delivered its verdict accordingly.

A Direct Call to Pakistan’s Pharma Industry

If you work at Abbott, GSK, CCL, Getz, Highnoon, Ferozsons, or any other major pharmaceutical company in Pakistan, and your organisation has a multivitamin or supplement product that Pakistanis genuinely need and do not know exists, this is your invitation.

Come forward. Tell your story. Share your product information.

Pakistani consumers are not avoiding your brands out of preference for the competition. They are avoiding your brands because they have never been told those brands exist. That is a solvable problem. It requires marketing investment, packaging redesign, digital presence, and the willingness to treat the supplement consumer as a customer worth competing for.

The market is large, growing rapidly, and currently dominated by two brands because everyone else decided not to show up.

Pakistan’s consumers deserve quality multivitamins from companies with the manufacturing standards, quality control systems, and regulatory compliance that major pharmaceutical companies can guarantee. They are ready to buy. The question is whether Pakistan’s pharma industry is finally ready to sell.

Note: Sales figures for individual companies are estimates based on industry sources and publicly available market data. Companies mentioned are invited to share official figures and product information directly with MediaBites for updated coverage.