The pharmaceutical multinationals that invested billions of euros in original drug portfolios are beginning to lose ground to the generic drug producers, which are betting on the low production costs to increase their market shares.
"The local pharmaceuticals market has grown, with the generic drugs seeing the biggest surge. It is natural, as long as the governmental policy focuses on the cheapest therapies. A similar trend is noticed worldwide, considering the global market's growth rate revolves around 5-6%.
This slow rise is caused by the fall in drug prices as the licence expires," said Dan Zamonea, general manager with Roche Romania.
Original drugs are those which revolutionise a certain market segment when they are launched, opening a new therapeutic area or providing a new treatment for a disease. They are protected by licences, over a period of up to 20 years.
When a licence expires, the drug can be produced by any company that has not been originally involved in its development.
This is one of the reasons why the groups with limited financial resources bet on generic drugs only, produced after the patent has expired.
"The therapeutic effects of the generic drug are similar to those of the licensed drug," explains Florentin Scarlat, corporate affairs manager with Ozone Laboratories. He feels the main benefit of the generic drugs is that they permit a real competition on the pharmaceutical market and significantly cut the cost of treatments.
"Considering that the price of a generic drug represents a fraction of the original drug's price, more people have access to the treatments they could not have benefited from under different circumstances," Florentin Scarlat also mentioned.
According to Ozone, generic drugs held 38.65% of the local market of prescribed drugs in the first half of the year. In terms of quantity, the generic drugs account for 78.40% of sales. The share held by the generic drugs in the domestic drug market rose by some 2% in H1, against the corresponding period of last year, namely from 36.77% to 38.65%.
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