Pharmacy market down by 10.6% in January

2010-02-24

In January 2010 the Polish pharmacy market (understood as retail pharmacy sales) was worth PLN 2.12bn (€532m), a drop of 10.6% compared with the same period a year ago, according to latest data from PharmaExpert. The decline came after a long period of uninterrupted (annualised) increases, most recently by 2.8% y-o-y in December 2009.
On a monthly basis the pharmacy market declined by 10.2%.
Sales were down across all categories in January, led by fully-paid prescriptions, which tumbled by 14.8% y-o-y to PLN 383m (€96.2m). Sales of reimbursed medicines slumped by 10.1% y-o-y to PLN 910m (€228.5m), whereas OTC sales were down by 9.4% y-o-y to PLN 811m (€203.6m).
The value of reimbursement fell 7.7% y-o-y to PLN 650m (€163.2m). The level of patient co-payment for reimbursed medicines amounted to 28.5%.
Average pharmacy turnover fell by 8.9% y-o-y to PLN 159,000 (€39,900).
At the same time, average prices rose in all drug categories, by between 6-12% y-o-y. The average pharmacy margin, at 27.2%, was higher in both annual and monthly terms.
In the opinion of Monika Stefanczyk, PMR Head Pharmaceutical Market Analyst, the decline in market value was chiefly caused by a very high reference base associated with the peak of respiratory infections that occurred in January 2009. This year the number of flu cases has remained significantly below year-ago level - and was down by 87% at the end of January 2010.