Stiri	Stiri afaceri	Stiri companii	Evenimente de afaceri

Drug sales of 1 billion euros in H1, 2009

The medication market dropped 7.2 percent in volume in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same period in 2008, but rose 3.8 percent in value, to 1 billion euros, according to information provided by the IMS Health market research company, Business standard reports on Thursday.

The main reason is attributed to the market being supplied by stocks already existing in pharmacies, as there is reluctance to place new orders with distributors.

As concerns the 3.8 percent increase in value of the pharmaceutical market, Corina Ciolan, General Manager of IMS believes that this is mainly due to the difference in the exchange rate used to pay for imported medications in the first half of 2008 and this year. According to regulations, the price of imported medications is set by the Ministry of Health and paid for at a fixed exchange rate. Last year, this rate was maintained at a level much lower than the real exchange rate, which will lead to an apparent increase in 2009 on the pharmaceutical market.

Medicines used for treating cancer and immunologic diseases accounted for 120 million euros in H1 of 2009, followed by medicines for respiratory diseases (67.5 million euros).

The cardiovascular treatment that covers one fifth of the market (196 million euros) dropped 3.9%.

The Swiss Roche company continues to be leader on the local pharmaceutical market, followed by Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, GSK, Servier, Pfizer, Zentiva, Ranbaxy, Astra Zeneca, and Schering Plough.

Corina Ciolan is expecting the pharmaceutical market to have a much more challenging third quarter, due to the deepening crisis, but also because of traditionally lower sales in this period.

The pharmaceutical market in 2008 stood at 2 billion euros , up 9.7% against 2007. The growth pace slowed down last year to over 30% of its 2007 level. The market's potential is still high on the medium and long run given that the medicine consumption per capita is two times smaller than in the Central European countries and by 4-5 times smaller than in Western Europe, Business Standard reports.

Sursa: http://www.agerpres.ro

Tags: market pharmaceutical euros billion

Articole similare