Spain not immune to world financial crisis

Humberto Arnes, the president of Spain's research-based drugmakers' association, Farmaindustria, has stated that the country's pharmaceutical industry is not immune to the world financial crisis. He added that, out of a 40,000 global reduction in the work force, Spanish drug firms had cut back their head count by about 700 in recent months.

The news comes as IMS Health reports a slow down across the leading European markets for retail pharmacy sales (see page 17). Despite this, Spain's performance in the 12 months to October 2008 indicated a 5% increase to $15.5 billion. With a substantially smaller population than the UK, where spending is falling, according to IMS data, Spain could overtake the UK to become Europe's fourth largest prescription medicines market, behind Germany, France and Italy, at some point during 2009.