On the one hand, delayed privatisation, lagging restructuring, obstacles devised by the authorities, substantial investment obligations and cheap products. On the other hand, aggressive marketing, expensive products, heavy lobbying and financial support from corporations. The results: drug imports soared to a new record-high last year, beyond 75 percent.
This impressive result was triggered by sustained growth of imports, which basically went up five times in the past seven years, whereas the sales of domestic-made drugs have not budged since 1997.
Practically, in the past seven years, imports were the main engine behind the growth of the Romanian drug market, which surged from 263 million dollars in 1996 to some 710 million dollars in 2003.
Last year, drug imports amounted to 536 million dollars, compared to 114.47 million dollars in 1996. During this seven-year interval, the sales of Romanian-made drugs froze at somewhere around 170 million dollars.
Romania has thus come to import drugs worth more than 500 million dollars every year, whereas exports amounted to a mere 16 million dollars, according to the National Statistics Institute (INS).
"This is very serious, and the problem has two main causes. First, more than 80% of the market (prescription drugs) is mediated by the medical stuff that, for various reason, promotes the foreign products. Secondly, those managing the healthcare funds are unacceptably generous: almost all of the new international drugs are to be found on the CNAS (National Health Insurance Bureau) list of discounted drugs, which does not happen even in the Western countries," says Petre Panculescu, president of the Association of Romanian Drugmakers.
The market's unbalance is also caused by the structural deficiencies of the Romanian health industry. The leading Romanian drugmakers (Sicomed Bucharest, Terapia Cluj) have been privatised late, towards the end of the '90s, while some of them have not even been fully privatised yet (this is the case of Antibiotice Iasi). On the other hand, the foreign producers are saying that they only cover certain segments where there are no quality Romanian-made drugs.
"It is obvious that increasingly more products are being imported, at rising average prices. On a market where prices should be a big factor, it is surprising that one of the importers' major competitive edges is the high price, which can often mean bigger profit margins. These margins are mostly invested in promotion, which means tough competition for us," says Mirel Nicola, sales and marketing manager of Sicomed Bucharest, Romania's largest drugmaker.
On the other hand, Roberto Musneci, head of the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) operations in Romania, says it is only normal for the share of imports to grow. "Except for several countries, such as Japan, the local products seldom account for more than 20% of the market. It is thus natural for the situation in Romania to follow the same trend. However, we do support the idea that more of the important original drugs should be made in Romania, which is in line with the GSK strategy," Musneci stated.
laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro
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