Brazil's Drugmakers To Invest $1.2 Bill

As much as $1.2 billion is expected to be invested by pharmaceuticalcompanies in Brazil by the year 2000, according to Abifarma, the country's drugmakers' association. Around $200-$250 million a year of this is expected to go into raising manufacturing capacity to cope with the increasing demand for medicines since the Real Plan was put into operation over two years ago.

Abifarma says Brazil is now the joint fourth largest pharmaceutical consumer (along with France) in the world. Recent IMS data for the 12 months to September 1996 showed that Brazil's drug sales (at retail price level) had increased by 21% (Marketletter January 6).

$120 Million Drug Exports As well as high domestic consumption, Brazil's pharmaceutical industry exported some $120 million worth of drugs which, according to Abifarma's president Jose Eduardo Bandeira de Mello, is evidence that the country has been lowering its production costs since, at the beginning of the current decade "export figures were insignificant."