Drug sales up 5% in year to August 2007

Retail pharmacy drug sales in 13 major markets grew 5% overall US$ terms, during the 12 months to August 2007, reaching $406.57 billion, reports IMS Health's Retail Drug Monitor. The rate of increase remains unchanged since April 2006 (Marketletters passim).

The most striking change since the last set of figures reported in this publication (Marketletter September 24) has seen Japan's growth double to 2%, reaching $56.82 billion. In previous reports, the Japanese market, where IMS includes hospital sales in its study, had been declining.

Argentina remains the fastest-growing market surveyed by IMS, with year-on-year growth climbing 19% to $2.54 billion, unchanged from the most recent report. Meanwhile, former trail-blazing Brazil has slowed-down relatively from a peak of 36% annual growth for the year ending July 2006, to a fairly modest 10% in the latest period, although this is still the second fastest national growth rate recorded in the survey and is unchanged versus last month's reported figure. The retail drug market for Brazil remains ahead of Mexico's at $9.46 billion vs $8.52 billion. The latter nation's 9% growth rate has accelerated slightly from 8%. Overall, the leading players in the Latin American market grew 10%, a slight slowdown largely due to rounding down adjustments.