Italy's pharmaceutical market least attractive in Western Europe, says BMI

In Business Monitor International’s fourth-quarter 2010 Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare Business Environment Ratings (BERs), the Western Europe region scored a total of 64.5 out of 100. The attractiveness of the region to pharmaceutical firms stems from the fact that its countries are key revenue sources for Big Pharma, particularly for companies selling high-end products, as per-capita spending is substantially above that of emerging markets.

However, it is BMI's view that drug companies will face many challenges in Western Europe over the next decade, including pressures to reduce fiscal deficits, the patent cliff, added regulatory hurdles and increasingly scrupulous cost-effectiveness assessments of new drugs all factors that will influence the risk and reward scores assigned to markets in the region.

In the fourth-quarter 2010 BERs, Italy remains the least attractive Western European market of the 10 surveyed. Despite being a large market, Italy is characterized by low levels of growth, largely a result of widespread price cuts and shaky levels of economic growth which translate into insufficient funds for pharmaceutical expenditure, especially for innovative products. High levels of public debt, poor infrastructure and a lack of competitiveness indicate that the country will remain one of the regions laggards over BMI’s forecast period. Additionally, pharmaceutical companies' performance in the country - already hampered by counterfeiting and parallel imports - is also expected to be majorly impacted by the pending patent expiration slope, says BMI.