Lithuania: amendment to the Pharmacy Act to introduce regulations to non-subsidized drugs proposed

The 2010 outlook for Lithuania's pharmaceutical market is fairly negative, according to Business Monitor International. Despite an almost inevitable uptick in relation to an extremely poor 2009, where the country was one of only a few globally to witness sales contractions, the road to recovery will likely be long.

The analysts Business Environment Ratings for first-quarter 2010 sees Lithuania ranked 16th out of the 20 markets surveyed in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region, with only Latvia, Moldova, Belarus and Uzbekistan scoring worse. From a regional perspective the outlook for pharmaceutical companies in Emerging Europe has improved marginally.

Lithuania's pharmaceutical market is small by regional standards. Per-capita spending is high, however, owing to the country's small population. In 2008 Lithuania spent approximately 1.5% of Gross Domestic Product on medicines, below average for the region.