The European Pharmaceutical Wholesale Industry: - phagro

The European Pharmaceutical Wholesale Industry
From 2000 to 2003 the manufacturing industry’s sales in the EU-15 member
states grew by 8.3% annually. In the same period of time, the wholesale industry’s
growth developed slightly slower reaching an average annual growth rate of
6.5%. These high average growth rates mask the fact, that the manufacturing
industry’s growth rate was actually curbed by 3.7 percentage points until 2003.
Evidently, this development also had a negative impact on the wholesale industry.
In the same period of time, the wholesale market growth rate was reduced by 3.9
percentage points to 3.5%. The stronger decline in wholesalers’ market growth
may be explained by cost-containment measures implemented by national health
care authorities, deteriorating margins.
Figure 3: Average Annual Growth Rates in Sales of the Pharmaceutical Industry and the
full-line Wholesale Industry in the EU-15, 2000-2003
10%
9%
8%
7%
6%
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%
7.46
8.96
6.60
7.24
6.16
8.26
3.51
2000 2001 2002 2003
Wholesale Industry
Pharmaceutical Industry
Source: EUROSTAT, GIRP data
In 2004, pharmaceutical wholesalers in the EU-15 earned a total turnover of
96,004 million EUR. The enlargement of the EU by 10 countries extended EU-wide
wholesale sales to 104,306 million EUR.
5.28
To give an impression on the economic importance of the
branch, 2004 wholesale sales are not far behind Portugal’s
GDP, reaching 135,035 million EUR.
IPF Institute for Pharmaeconomic Research 8