The European Pharmaceutical Wholesale Industry: - phagro

7
The European Pharmaceutical Wholesale Industry
medicines distributed by wholesalers are sold to pharmacies, followed by hospital
pharmacies with 8.5%.
Figure 2: Percentage of Medicines (Quantity) distributed by full-line Wholesalers,
EU-22, 2004
Supply
Demand
Wholesaler (100%)
87,7% 0,2% 8,5% 2,4%
1,2%
Retail
pharmacies
Hospital
Drugstores Others
pharmacies
Patients (100%)
IPF Institute for Pharmaeconomic Research
Dispensing
doctors
90,7% 0,4% 7,7%
0,3%
0,8%
Source: GIRP data, IPF research
The wholesale industry is an important, but only a small branch within the European
Union. Thus, the outstanding denotation of the branch as link between the
pharmaceutical industry and retail pharmacies, hospital pharmacies and others
allowed to dispense medicines is often overlooked in political and public debate on
the pharmaceutical sector.
The pharmaceutical wholesale industry is a small but vital
branch within the pharmaceutical sector. In 2004, more than
670 full-line wholesale companies throughout the 22 countries
of the European Union observed met the challenge to supply
medicines safely, rapidly and continuously to more than 450
million people.
Table 1: Players in the Pharmaceutical Sector in the EU-15, 2002 2
Manufacturing Industry Wholesale Industry Pharmacies
Companies 3,597 426 113,919 3)
Employees 505,432 1)
Sales (million €) 169,633 2)
1) No data for Luxembourg available; Belgium, Greece and UK values for 2001
2) No data for Luxembourg available
3) Belgium, France, UK values for 2001
65,217 599,867 3)
87,373 113,393 3)
Source: EUROSTAT, GIRP data, HAPC 2005, Walter et al. 2005
2 Latest data available from EUROSTAT