New world market forecasts from DR

More than 87 million people in the world's seven major pharmaceuticalmarkets (the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and Japan) currently suffer from anxiety disorders, according to a new study from Decision Resources.

In all major markets, increasing public awareness of such disorders, which include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social anxiety disorder and specific phobia, will broaden their acceptance as treatable diseases, comments DR. This awareness, coupled with improvements in general practitioners' ability to recognize and distinguish between these disorders, will spur an estimated 10% increase in diagnosis by 2009, it says, and forecasts that an increase in the diagnosed population will expand the total anxiety market from a value of $2 billion in 1999 to almost $3 billion in 2009.

Another new report from DR examines the prospects for treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which affects an estimated 4%-6% of people aged over 45 in the seven major markets. The World Health Organization predicts that, by 2020, COPD will be the third most common cause of death worldwide, notes DR, which forecasts that the number of sufferers will grow from over 35 million in 1999 to more than 38 million by 2009.