The Polish pharmaceutical market: how major drugmakers view it

The Polish pharmaceutical market has grown dynamically in the past five years, showing great resilience to the impact of adverse trends prevailing in the market. As demonstrated by the results of the most recent study conducted by the advisory company KPMG and the Poland-based research company PMR in June 2009, the current economic situation linked to the global economic crisis has not affected the good performance of the pharmaceutical industry; either, it has not had an adverse effect on the optimistic mood prevailing among pharmaceutical companies in Poland.

Marcin Rudnicki, partner and dead of the Pharmaceuticals Group at KPMG believes that 'pharmaceutical companies expect continued growth of the market. Over half of companies surveyed plan to increase investments in employee development and production infrastructure in the next 12 months.' He also points out that 'more than 60% of the surveyed companies described the current market situation as good or very good - a steep 40% of the surveyed companies plan to introduce three to 10 new drugs by the end of 2009.'

Monika Bartoszewicz, partner, Audit Department at KPMG, adds: 'It appears that the pharmaceutical sector has managed to find a solution to achieve growth during the times of economic slowdown. In 2009, the value of the pharmaceutical market in Poland will exceed 25 billion zlotys ($8.8 billion), which shows a significant improvement over the figure for 2008. On-line pharmacies will be the fastest growing distribution channel ' a whopping 80% of the companies surveyed predict that distribution through this channel will develop faster than the pharmacy sales market as a whole'.