Pharmaceutical firms profit from rising disease burden

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

A growing trend of ailments plaguing the Nigerian populace, including non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as hypertension, cancer and diabetes, is offering huge growth prospects for pharmaceutical companies challenged to manufacture drugs to address the situation.

As growth opportunities continue to move away from traditional pharmaceutical markets (Europe and Latin America), most multinationals companies (MNCs) like Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, Pfizer, and GSK Nigeria, have Africa in the sights of their expanding global footprints, with pharmaceutical spending in Africa, including Nigeria expected to reach $30 billion by 2016.

This revelation, contained in the IMS Health Market Prognosis report titled “Africa: A ripe opportunity” showed that the pharmaceutical spending is driven by a 10.6 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2016, second only to Asia Pacific (12.5%) and in line with Latin America (10.5%) during this period.

Spurred by increased wealth and healthcare investment, as well as rising demand for drugs to treat chronic diseases, the pharmaceutical market potentially represents a $45 billion opportunity by 2020.

Source: Business Day (link opens in a new window)

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Health Care
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public health