Research and Markets: Last Report of the Year in This Series to Focus on France Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Industry

DUBLIN-(Business Wire)-September 28, 2009 - Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b168ba/france_pharmaceuti) has announced the addition of the "France Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q4 2009" report to their offering.

This France 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 France's pharmaceuticals and healthcare industry.

In this Business Environment Rankings (BER) for Q409, France remains ranked 3rd out of the 9 Western European markets surveyed. Despite its unwavering focus on cost-containment, the country's position in the regional market has improved since Q209, buoyed by high per capita spending on drugs and the tradition of high prescribing and usage of medicines. Additionally, France benefits from a strong emphasis on its regulatory environment, although foreign companies have been critical of the country's 'aggressive' promotion of generics. However, as the French economy is suffering along with the rest of the eurozone, and as a recovery will have to wait until well into 2010, the government is unlikely to relinquish its grip on public healthcare expenditure.

Overall, the publisher calculates that France's pharmaceutical expenditure will rise from some EUR34.07bn (US$50.10bn) in 2008 to EUR38.81bn (US$49.12bn) in 2013. This equates to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.64% in euro terms, although the market value in US dollar terms will suffer from the weakening of the euro in the current year. Generic and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are expected to perform better than the patented segment, which will continue to be the target of cost-containment. Generics especially are expected to post a healthy 12.75% CAGR in local currency terms, accounting for 14% of the total market value in 2013.

In the meantime, in June 2009, France's third largest insurance company, AGF-Allianz, signed an agreement with a pharmacy grouping (representing a third of the country's pharmacies) for the reimbursement of a number of OTC medicines from the end of the month. Reimbursement of some 1,000 OTCs indicated for the total of 43 health conditions (including cough and cold) will be provided for those citizens who have signed up for complimentary health insurance. In the coming years, up to 3,000 more products could be subject to a status switch, which should lead to both the volume growth of the OTC market, but also to a higher degree of price competition, to the detriment of values. However, previous experience showed that the prices of some OTCs rose once they were removed from the reimbursement list, and therefore the full impact of the recent developments is yet to be felt.

In terms of company news, French stalwart Sanofi-Aventis acquired Pfizer's Diabel manufacturing plant in Germany, one of largest state-of-the-art insulin manufacturing plants in the world. Sanofi's product portfolio already includes successful insulin therapies such as Apidra (insulin glulisine) and Lantus (insulin glargine), with the latter also being developed for other indications. Sanofi-Aventis's vaccine arm Sanofi Pasteur recently signed an agreement with Delphi Genetics for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals using the latter's StabyExpress technology, with a view to promote its longer-term investments in the biotechnological sector. The company is already a global leader in vaccines, which may provide it with a welcome stay in the face of the upcoming patent cliff.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b168ba/france_pharmaceuti

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