Biotech Values

[Preciouslife1]

A Bad Year for U.S. Drug Sales Gets Worse
Posted by Jacob Goldstein

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/10/29/a-bad-year-for-us-drug-sales-gets-worse/

The number crunchers at IMS Health just cut their estimate for growth of U.S. drug sales to 1% to 2% this year– way down from the 4% to 5% they’d previously forecasted, the WSJ reports.
On top of the usual suspects — too few new blockbusters, too many generic competitors — the industry is also facing pinched consumers less able to afford expensive brand-name drugs.

Those pressures are pushing the industry to pay more attention to emerging markets. Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline have all made aggressive moves in that direction. But the global economic troubles may also slow growth there.

Still, the top seven emerging markets will account for about 34% of global sales growth next year, up from 7% in 2000, IMS said. Sales in the U.S. are projected to grow another 1% to 2% next year, accounting for 9% of worldwide growth.

A few years back, by contrast, U.S. sales growth accounted for 40% to 50% of the global growth in annual pharmaceutical sales.

The light at the end of the tunnel is for consumers of
Pharmaceutical drugs, and those that pay $4 at Walmart for
their scripts now imho