PHARMACEUTICALS MARKETS

ASIA: Japanese pharma market suffers from 'drug-lag'.

The Japanese pharmaceutical market is the second largest and constitutes approximately 13% of the global total but exhibits slower growth than the world average. It is also one of the few high-tech industries in Japan that runs a trade deficit which is currently $3 billion annually.

The market is in a state of 'drug-lag' as it takes, on average, 3.5 years longer for a drug to hit the market than in the USA or Europe. In 2004 36% of the 88 top selling drugs were not available in Japan.

UK PHARMACEUTICALS

EUROPE: ABPI takes issue with NICE recommendations.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) is taking issue with the process by which the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) reaches its recommendations. NICE is, inter alia, responsible for evaluating new and existing treatments for use within the UK's National Health Service.

NICE state that they base their recommendations on both clinical evidence (how well the medicine or treatment works) and economic evidence (how well the medicine or treatment works in relation to how much it costs the NHS). The ABPI believes that NICE is applying arbitrary thresholds of 'cost-effectiveness' and, where there is uncertainty in the process, patients are often denied the benefit of doubt.