Generics Market Growth Will Outpace Innovative Drug Sales

Worldwide, the generics drug market will grow by 14% annually betweennow and the year 2000, according to a new report from Datamonitor entitled Pharma Vitae: The Generics Intelligence Series (available through Marketletter Publications). This compares with 6% growth for innovative drugs, it adds.

The total generics market for 1996 is valued at between $30 million and $40 million (the exact definition of a generic product varies by market and so leads to an equivocal market size). As can be seen from the table below, the share of generics within various markets differs significantly.

Generic share of pharma market by value % ----------------------------------------- Country 1995 2000 *CAGR USA 11 16 7% Germany 30 40 6% UK 15 24 10% France 3 5 11% Italy 3 3 11% Spain 2 4 15% Japan 8 12 8% Source: Datamonitor * Compound annual growth rate 1995-2000 -----------------------------------------