The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

Big Pharma eyes Africa’s middle classes:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/12/us-bigpharma-africa-growth-idUSBRE91B0D620130212

The growth will be fuelled by increasing economic wealth and demand for treatments for chronic diseases in a more urban, middle-class population.

Non-communicable diseases - like heart disease, lung disorders, diabetes and cancer - are expected to account for 46 percent of all deaths in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030, up from 28 percent in 2008, according to the World Bank.

It is a major shift for the pharmaceutical industry, whose main role has been supplying drugs for infectious diseases such as malaria and HIV in Africa, often on a humanitarian basis.

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