BUCHAREST (Romania), September 14 (SeeNews) – Romania's pharmaceuticals market rose by 17.8% to 7.6 billion lei ($2.6 billion/1.8 billion euro) in the twelve-month period through June 30, 2009, a survey by market research company Cegedim Romania showed on Monday.
The driving force behind the market growth were retail sales, which accounted for 86.8% of total sales over the period, the survey showed.
The drug market expanded by 4.7% in the three-month period through June this year to 1.89 billion lei.
In the twelve months ended June 30, 2009, Hoffmann La Roche led the market in terms of sales value with an 8.1% share, followed by France’s Sanofi-Aventis with 6.9% and Britain’s GSK with 6.7%. Swiss Novartis ranked fourth with a market share of 6.2%.
Local drug makers Terapia Ranbaxy, Zentiva S.A. and Antibiotice had market shares of 4.4%, 3.7% and 2.7%, respectively.
Cegedim said earlier it expected the local drug market to grow by around 10% this year from 7.2 billion lei in 2008.
(1 euro = 4.2729 Romanian lei)