The countries of the Middle East have become increasingly important markets as a result of substantial investment in both the private and public sectors, introduction of mass health insurance and several moves to liberalize national economies, the “Middle Eastern Pharmaceutical Market Outlook To 2014” report said. The Middle East pharmaceutical market was valued at $14.8 billion in 2008, registering a y-o-y sales growth of 12.6 percent, and is forecast to return at a CAGR of 8.1 percent between 2008 and 2014 to reach a total value of $23.5 billion in 2014. Among the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia is considered as the most attractive healthcare market in the Gulf which is mainly because of its rapidly growing population, enormous economic resources, the report by Companiesandmarkets.com said. Turkey is a strong proponent of liberal trade and investment policies. It has an open trading system, especially with countries in the EU, with which it forged a customs union agreement in 1996. The Middle East pharmaceutical market is diverse, with a significant presence of leading global players alongside domestic pharmaceutical companies, it said. Although, Middle East countries were a late entrant to the biotech sector, countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and UAE have made a dramatic progress in recent years, which was mainly due to several government initiatives. Moreover, several public-private partnerships also boosted the growth of pharmaceutical sector in the Middle East region, the report said. The general anti-infective market is expected to generate the highest sales of $3.9b billion in 2014, followed by alimentary canal & metabolic disorders at $3.7 billion. The report noted that general anti-infectives, alimentary canal & metabolism and cardiovascular disorders remained as top selling therapeutic categories in the Middle East, while registering 2008 sales of $2.6 billion, $2.3 billion and $1.9 billion respectively. It pointed out that THE leading brands in the Middle East pharmaceutical market had a predominance of respiratory and cardiovascular drugs. However, the top 10 brands constituted a very small fraction of the Middle East market, with other drugs making up 94.1 percent of the total market in 2008, it added. The report features, among others, the macroeconomic environment in the Middle East countries, includeing the population profile, disease burden and macroeconomic comparison (involving economic landscape and healthcare spending) for all the major Middle East markets It also contains overview of key recent events in the Middle East pharmaceutical market that have impacted treatment trends and sales potential across all the Middle East countries, as well as forecasts and analysis of the leading products in the region.
