Emerging markets to see fastest growth, as pharma industry faces challenges

Globally, the scientific foundation on which the pharma industry rests has improved vastly over the years. Technologies for collecting and synthesizing biological data are improving and becoming much cheaper and more efficient, according to a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

However, in the short term, the industry continues to face challenges like patent cliff, rising drug discovery cost, harsher regulations and price controls, coupled with spiralling health care cost.

The worldwide sales of medicines reached $1.08 trillion in 2011 (an increase of 7.8% over the previous year) and are expected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2020, notes PwC.