Pharmaceutical is one of the industrial sectors more dynamic in the world and in Italy, with strategic importance of the distribution chain. The high rate of productivity and the growth of our country's exports make it of primary interest for the whole economy. The world pharmaceutical market isdoubled over the past 10 years and worldwide sales have crossed the psychological threshold for the first time 1000 billions of dollars in 2014. But the Italian pharmaceutical spending is lower than the European and US average, While the distribution takes place through a network of over 18 pharmacies.
This is what emerges from the Report on the pharmaceutical industry drawn up by the Research & Investor Relations Area of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.
The report deals in particular with the drug pricing and distribution, a highly structured and widespread segment of economic activity. Also in Italy, though the very difficult economic context in 2013, the pharmaceutical was grown up slightly less than 6%, with the 72% of the entire production destined for export. The report highlights that the training of the retail priceit originates not only from costs of research and development (approx 40% of the total) but also from the contributions of the activities of import. Wholesale, detail, and tax component affect the remainder, equal to about 60%.
Analyzes of accredited institutes show that in any case i Costs which must be incurred by companies to complete the drug approval process are increased by 145% during the past 10 years, aaverage growth rate annual compound 8,5%.
Some are debunked common places, such as the myth that health care spending is high when it only represents9% of GDP against 12% of the European average and addiritura the 17% negli USA.
even the international comparison of the prices of drugs highlights how those practiced in Italy are not high compared to the foreign average: recent studies highlight how the prices of pharmaceutical products in our country are 14,6% lower compared to the European average.
Great is the growth of the distribution sector which is described on a structural and quantitative level: The Banca MPS Research service has developed an index, MPS-PHD, based on the stock market prices of the main worldwide distribution companies. The index is tripled in the period 2011-2015 and increased by 36% only during 2014.
Very important is also the capillarity of pharmaceutical distribution throughout Europe, where they are presentover one hundred thousand pharmacies: in Italy alone they are beyond 18 thousand.
Delicate theme is that of parallel distribution, an activity that is held by many to be responsible forshortage of some drugs very important in Italy. In fact, in our country they are bought and resold by operators on other markets where the prices of the same drugs are higher.
