BUCHAREST (Romania), August 31 (SeeNews) – Romania's pharmaceuticals market narrowed by 0.1% year-on-year to 3.29 billion lei ($851 million/716 million euro) in the second quarter due to the lower value of cost-volume contracts for prescription drugs, a new survey showed on Thursday.
Sales of prescription drugs sales fell to 2.15 billion lei, down by an annual 7.5%, in the second quarter, market research company Cegedim Romania said in a press release.
Sales of over-the-counter drugs increased to 722 million lei, up by 19.3% year-on-year, while sales of drugs to hospitals rose to 410 million lei, up 14.8% on the second quarter of 2016.
In the 12 months ended July 31 Romania's drug market grew 10% to 13.1 billion lei.
US-based pharmaceutical research and development company AbbVie, which made a deal with Romanian health ministry for the delivery of its Hepatitis C new drug Viekira Pak in the fall of 2015, led the Romanian market in terms of sales value in the last 12 months with a market share of 6.9% and sales of 899.6 million lei. It is followed by France’s Sanofi including Zentiva with a 6.7% market share and sales of 878.7 million lei, and Switzerland's Novartis including Sandoz with a 4.7% market share and sales of 619.8 million lei, Cegedim survey showed.
"Although things seem to be quiet on the drug market, I'm afraid that's not the case. Growth is non-uniform and we have come into a situation where a product's availability is turning into an inappropriate competitive advantage," Petru Craciun, CEO of Cegedim, said.
Prices of prescription drugs were lowered as of July 1, 2015 making some medications hard to find in Romania as they are being exported to markets where the sale prices are higher.
"We returned in time by 15-20 years, when relatively ordinary medicines were not found or were difficult to find, much to the patients' despair," Craciun added.
(1 euro= 4.5906 Romanian lei)