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A research company has produced a report on the underexploited Serbian pharmaceutical market.
Dublin-based Research and Markets has added Serbia Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q1 2008 to its offering.
The report provides forecasts and intelligence on Serbia’s pharmaceuticals and healthcare industry.
The Serbian pharmaceutical market, which technically contracted following the June 2006 dissolution of the union of Serbia and Montenegro, remains the least developed in central and eastern Europe (CEE).
However, the country’s desire to join the EU will in the longer term boost opportunities for both foreign and domestic stakeholders. In the shorter term, a difficult pricing and reimbursement environment will continue to conspire to hamper market access and development.
The relatively underdeveloped status of the primary network has resulted in the dominance of hospitals as key points of care, with prescription medicines consequently accounting for the majority of pharmaceutical expenditure.
Out-of-pocket spend is also high, as state reimbursed medicines are often out of stock and public funds suffer from chronic financial shortages.
Generics, on the other hand, represent around one-third of the market in value terms, and a higher percentage in terms of volume.
The copy segment will continue to make gains in the forecast period, supported by the need for cost containment as well as by the suboptimal intellectual property (IP) environment.
In the longer term, however, patented medicines will benefit from the involvement of foreign players in the domestic industry (through acquisitions and investment), as well as from the country’s need to align its regulatory environment with that of the EU.
