Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/c8aafb/lebanon_pharmaceut) has announced the addition of the “Lebanon Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q4 2010” report to their offering.
The Lebanon Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, pharmaceutical associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Lebanon’s pharmaceuticals and healthcare industry.
In BMI’s Q410 Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare Business Environment Ratings (BERs), the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region scored a total of 45.4 out of a possible 100. Despite scoring the lowest of all regions for the quarter, BMI notes that the attractiveness of the region to pharmaceutical firms stems from the fact that its countries fall within the emerging market category which we believe will drive growth in the pharmaceuticals & healthcare industry boosting the risk and reward scores assigned to markets in the region in the long term. The importance of emerging markets to large multinational drugmakers cannot be overstated and BMI’s Pharmaceutical Expenditure Model reveals that five-year compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) in traditional markets such as the US, Western Europe and Japan are all in the low single figures. Meanwhile, the US dollar five-year CAGRs for the main emerging markets Brazil, Russia, India and China are expected to post double-digit increases.
In BMIs updated BER matrix for Q410, Lebanon is placed 13th of the 19 markets surveyed in the MEA region. Lebanon’s position in the table reflects the fact that its pharmaceutical market is viewed as one of the least promising among its Arab peers, due to its small size and a significant amount of counterfeit activity.
In 2009, Lebanon’s pharmaceutical market was worth LBP1,307bn (US$870mn) and by 2014 we calculate the medicines market will be worth LBP2,053bn (US$1.37bn), equating to a CAGR of 9.46% in local currency terms and 9.51% in US dollar terms. Over our extended forecast period to 2019, we calculate the drug market will experience a CAGR of 7.58% in local currency terms and 8.34% in US dollar terms, reaching a value of LBP2,714bn (US$1.94bn).
In 2009, per-capita pharmaceutical sales reached a value of US$206 and by 2014, we expect this to increase to US$312. By 2019, we forecast this figure will have increased further to US$426. Pharmaceutical sales as a percentage of GDP reached a value of 2.71% of GDP in 2009. In June 2010, with the aim of containing healthcare costs, Health Minister Mohammad Jawad Khalifeh announced that price cuts of up to 23% will be implemented on 118 pharmaceuticals, mainly for cardiovascular and hypertension diseases. We note that while drug pricing controls in the country could have a negative impact on the prescription drugs sector, they will increase volume sales. The lack of a price control system in the country has been a fundamental cause of high drug prices, with an estimated 21.5% of household income spent on drugs. With large sections of the population not covered by insurance for drugs, pharmaceutical expenditure is a significant burden, especially on low-income sections of the country.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.