IN THE SECOND QUARTER, The pharmaceutical market dropped almost 9%

The domestic drug market dropped 8.8% in the April-June 2009 period, to 449.9 million Euros. Over the same period, the market shrank 15.3% in terms of volume, according to data supplied by pharmaceuticals market research company "Cegedim".

Petru Crăciun, general manager of "Cegedim": "All pharmaceutical products saw a steep decline in the second quarter. The current trend is downward, even though the market began to stabilize over the course of the last five quarters". According to Mr. Crăciun, "the market will decrease in size by around 4% in 2009, compared to 2008".

He mentioned that the main types of retail products - OTC and Rx drugs lost 21.6%, and 11.9% y/y, respectively, in Q2 2009. "The numbers for the second quarter come on the back of legislative measures, which led to price cuts for Rx drugs", said Petru Crăciun. Still, in his opinion, low prices affect the offer more than demand.

The general manager of "Cegedim" also said that over the course of the last 12 months (ed. note: June 2008-June 2009), the turnover of the market increased by 4.8%, to 1,928 million Euros, whereas it dropped 6% in terms of volume.

• "Cegedim": "We expected the market to fare better"

According to data compiled by "Cegedim", the treatment period segment dropped by more than 7%, which exceeded the company"s expectations. "We were expecting the market to do better, in spite of the current economic context", said Mr. Crăciun. In his opinion, the troubles of the pharmaceutical market will continue, on the back of distributor difficulties, as well as due to the unavailability of certain drugs.

Compared to the situation of Central Europe, Mr. Crăciun claims that the markets in the area are not faced with contractions. Such contractions only occurred in countries such as Bulgaria or Ukraine, caused, among other things by the size of the state budget for this sector, as well as by the administrative and political culture.

"Cegedim" estimates the decline of the market will continue into 2010, with an estimated 10.8% drop in lei and 3% in Euros.