In a national pharmaceutical market that sees growth of +3% in value in 2013 (against -0.8% in 2012), the pharmacy channel recorded a small growth of 1.3%, mainly due to the commercial sector (+3. 8%) more than ethical (-0.4%). This is the picture of the past year and presented by Sergius Liberator, general manager of Ims Health on the occasion of the recent three days of work organized by Asis in Tirrenia (Pisa) entitled "Innovating to grow". «In Italy» Liberatore explained «we have a pharmaceutical expenditure per capita which is lower than the European average, innovation is struggling to penetrate the market and the number of launches of new drugs is lower than in other countries. In this scenario, the ethical market manages to record a positive trend, with a +2.9%, in which the contribution of the Hospital and Distribution on behalf channels confirms itself as the engine of growth, respectively with +5.4% and a plus 13 ,2% while the other sales channels recorded a slight decrease (-0,4%)». In the pharmacy channel, he added "the growth achieved in 2013 by the total market, including the commercial and ethical ones, "is mainly linked to the commercial sector". In particular, according to the data presented, within the commercial sector, the growth partly concerned self-medication drugs (+2.3%), but above all non-notified products (supplements) which had the greatest growth, marking a + 7.9%. The forecast proposed by Ims Health is positive: «Despite the difficulties, we expect market growth over the next five years, albeit limited, which will keep Italy in its position among the top 10 in the EU» concluded Liberatore «Expected growth moreover at world market level with a trend between 3.5 and 6.5% by 2017, and which will mainly concern emerging markets while the United States will see only a small acceleration and Europe will continue to slow down the growth rate ».
Simone Zazzetta
Monday, March 24, 2014 – Pharmacist33
