The pharmacy market closes the first half of 2016 at 12.7 billion euros, down 1.7% from the same period last year. This is what the latest Ims Health surveys report, based on a sample of 8,000 pharmacies distributed throughout the country. The contraction, according to the data, must be imputed to the prescription drug sector which between January and June decreased by 2.7% compared to 2015. The area of over-the-counter pharmacy sales, on the other hand, remained almost stable (-0.2%), closing at 5.1 billion euro (see infographic on the side).
Furthermore, extremely heterogeneous trends are recorded within the commercial sector. For example, supplements continue to fly, growing by 7.1% in the six-month period mainly thanks to vitamins, gynecological-urological products and products for the circulatory system. The hygiene and personal care segment also performed well, rising both in terms of volumes (+2%) and values (+2.5%). On the other hand, the beauty segment recorded a slight decrease (-0.6%), within which, however, face creams went against the trend (volumes +4.2%, values +4.5%) which kept the beauty products sub-segment stable female (0.1% values). Lastly, non-prescription drugs were down sharply, closing the half year at -4.1% due to lack of seasonality.
