Financial fortitude: Indian pharmaceutical sector’s performance before and during COVID-19 using fuzzy AHP & TOPSIS

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The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the financial performance of various sectors across the globe, including the Indian pharmaceutical industry. This study aims to evaluate the financial performance of ten Indian pharmaceutical companies listed in the S&P BSE Healthcare Index over two distinct periods: before COVID-19 (2018–2020) and during the pandemic (2020–2022). A hybrid multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach, integrating the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), is employed to assess companies based on five key financial dimensions and several performance indicators. Results indicate that profitability, valuation, and growth ratios were the most critical dimensions, with weights of 0.21 each, followed by liquidity (0.19) and efficiency (0.18). Furthermore, among the companies evaluated, Divis Labs and Abbott India emerged as top performers, both during and before the pandemic, with Divis Labs registering closeness coefficients of 0.871 and 0.814 during 2020–2021 and 2021–2022. The findings highlight the financial resilience of these companies, offering valuable insights for stakeholders in formulating strategies to sustain financial stability during future crises.

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    • Figure 1. The hierarchical structure of the proposed model
    • Figure 2. FAHP-TOPSIS ranking of the Indian pharmaceutical sector based on their financial efficiency before and during COVID-19
    • Table 1. Decision criteria and list of sample companies
    • Table 2. Fuzzy comparison matrix
    • Table 3. Computed synthesized values, and normalized main criteria weights
    • Table 4. Calculated sub-criteria weights
    • Table 5. Total weighted values of primary criteria
    • Table 6. Ranking of firms following calculated CCo values
    • Table A1. List of investigated companies and their key characteristics
    • Conceptualization
      Sonia Lobo, Sudhindra Bhat
    • Data curation
      Sonia Lobo
    • Formal Analysis
      Sonia Lobo
    • Investigation
      Sonia Lobo
    • Methodology
      Sonia Lobo
    • Resources
      Sonia Lobo
    • Software
      Sonia Lobo
    • Visualization
      Sonia Lobo, Sudhindra Bhat
    • Writing – original draft
      Sonia Lobo
    • Writing – review & editing
      Sonia Lobo, Sudhindra Bhat
    • Project administration
      Sudhindra Bhat
    • Supervision
      Sudhindra Bhat
    • Validation
      Sudhindra Bhat