Bulgaria Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q3 2008 - http://www.companiesandmarkets.com adds new report

2008-10-17 08:13:01 - Bulgaria Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q3 2008 - a new market research report on www.companiesandmarkets.com

www.companiesandmarkets.com/Summary-Market-Report/Bulgaria-Pharm ..

BMI’s revised Business Environment Rankings for Q308 once again finds Bulgaria in the joint second position, alongside the Czech Republic, but this time also alongside Latvia, out of the 17 regional markets surveyed in CEE. Bulgaria’s recently attained EU membership and a favourable business climate have resulted in the improvement in the country’s longer term pharmaceutical market outlook, which is

 

 

already being recognised by foreign firms. Large European companies are already active in the market, having acquired shares in local players, which are mainly engaged in the production of generic medicines. Generic drugs presently account for over a quarter of the market by value and will continue to gain shares at the expense of the costlier, patented variety. In the first three months of 2008, Actavis Bulgaria launched a number of new generics, including cardiovascular agents fosinopril and lisinopril, oncology drugs irinotecan (generic version of Pfizer’s Camptosar) and bicalutamide, and antidepressant sertraline (generic version of Pfizer’s Zoloft).



Domestic companies are also using their clout to expand regionally. To this end, in March 2008, Bulgarian drugmaker Sopharma announced that it is planning a regional expansion, as it attempts to bolster its bottom line. To facilitate the move, Sopharma has formed a joint venture with Polish Natur Produkt Zdrovit and is also on the verge of buying a pharmaceutical plant in Serbia. However, chronic funding shortages plaguing the healthcare sector will continue to hamper the government’s attempt to modernise and improve services. Nevertheless, the new Health Minister - appointed following a recent cabinet reshuffle – is committed to allocating around 5% of GDP is needed for healthcare. The Minister was quick to emphasise the importance of developing a national healthcare strategy and the fact that serious structural changes would be implemented throughout every level of the system. In fact, the government is already planning to liberalise the health insurance sector in the hope that private sector involvement would increase efficiency and introduce competition, bringing down the cost of premiums.



The cabinet is thought to be considering ending the monopoly of the NHIF, with a number of models proposed. The result could be that the NHIF would be the only distributor for basic health care packages, while private insurers would compete for the remaining coverage. While the changes have the potential to bolster the growth of the pharmaceutical market, forecasts – which have recently been revised upwards after the new IMS Health figures were released - will continue to reflect improved opportunities for manufacturers of long-term and chronic treatments, an increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) and the introduction of higher-quality and thus more expensive products as replacements for medicines not compliant with EU standards.