Development Of German Pharma Market

Meantime, the VFA, the trade group representing Germany's research-baseddrugmakers, says that first-half 1996 sales of pharmaceuticals in the German pharmacies market, which comprises all drugs dispensed in pharmacies, rose 3.2% on the like, year-earlier period, to just above 13 billion Deutschemarks ($6.96 billion) at ex-factory prices.

According to VFA managing director Cornelia Yzer, this rise in sales is mainly due to "anticipatory effects in June as a reaction of physicians and patients to the higher co-payments which are valid since July." A first qualitative analysis shows that physicians continued to use increasingly new pharmaceuticals and modern therapeutic principles in the first half, she says, noting the examples of new treatments for cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.

Sales of cytostatics increased 22.1% on first-half 1996, while MS treatment with interferon beta was up by nearly 50%. Most dramatic was the AIDS therapy sector, where sales rose by almost 96% in value, reflecting the use of the new HIV protease inhibitors.