Steady growth in global prescription sales

The global prescription market rose by 6.4% in 2007, taking the total sales value to US$712bn (Euro 447bn), according to IMS Health, a leading provider of market intelligence to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

North America, which accounts for 45.9% global pharmaceutical sales, grew by 4.2% to $304.5bn (€191.0bn), down from 8.3% the previous year. Although the US market remains the largest single market, its growth rate fell dramatically, resulting in the US market's contribution to global growth declining to its lowest point ever, at 25.5%.

Latin American markets continued their rapid expansion, growing 11.6% to $42.4bn (€26.6bn). Macroeconomic trends continue to expand these markets: Brazil, a $15.7bn (€9.8bn) market grew by 9.7%, while Mexico grew at a rate of 7.5%, reaching $11.1bn (€7.0bn).

Across the five major European markets (France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Spain) aggregate growth was 4.8%, largely reflecting the impact of health policy and funding initiatives. The total market expanded to $140bn (€87.8bn). Other European markets expanded by 10.9% to $81.6bn (€51.2bn). Among these markets Russia and Turkey recorded the greatest growth at 20.2% and 17.2% respectively.

The Japanese pharmaceutical market grew by 3.6%, higher than the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the prior five years, reflecting limited impact from the biennial price cuts that occurred on 1 April, 2006 and on 1 April, 2008. This growth took the total market to $65.2bn (€40.9bn) for the full year.

Asian markets (excluding Japan but including Australia and New Zealand) grew collectively by 13.3% and now represent 11% of the total global market. Robust economic growth and expansion of access to healthcare remains the primary driver of these markets. China, Korea and India grew by 25.7%, 10.7% and 13.0% respectively in 2007.