Pharmaceutical market broken down in different ways
Looking at the overall medicine sales gives a simplified picture of the whole. The most suitable way to define the market is to break it down by distribution channel.
The most common way to divide the total market is by distribution channel:
- pharmacy sales about 75% of the whole
- hospital sales 20-23%
The rest or about 2% of the whole is accounted for by the nicotine replacement treatments sold in grocery stores, and about 1% are products requiring a special permit from the Finnish Medicines Agency allowing patients to buy medicines otherwise not available in Finland.
Pharmacy sales and reimbursable medicines
Pharmacy sales can be broken down to:
- prescription-only medicines
- self-care medicines
Most pharmacy sales are prescription-only medicines. Reimbursements are paid on 90% of these medicines.
Reimbursable medicines are the core of the whole market; they account for over half of all pharmaceutical sales. Changes in the core sales have a direct or indirect impact on all other market areas. For example, the adjustment of the prices of reimbursable medicines or competition are factors that lower the price without exception and influence both the pharmacy sales and the hospital sales of medicines.
Other ways to divide the pharmaceutical market
The market can also be divided
- into generic medicine and innovative medicine markets
- according to patent validity.
These divisions are based on estimates since the official statistics do not go into detail in this respect.
Finnish pharmaceutical market is changing
The generic substitution system that entered into force in 2003 and its extension to patented medicines in 2009, as well as the concomitantly introduced reference price system, has increased the share of the overall reimbursements accounted for by generics. These reforms also enhanced price competition in the pharmaceutical market.
For a long time, the best selling medicines in Finland were those for the treatment of the major national health problems, cardiovascular diseases and the disorders of the musculo-skeletal system. Today, the largest medicine groups by sales are the nervous system medicines, such as antidepressants.
At wholesale prices, the Finnish pharmaceutical market was almost 2 billion euro in 2009 while the retail value of medicine sales was 2.7 billion.