According to IMS Health, the growth rate for prescription drugs slowed to 1.3 percent in 2008, to $291 billion.
Dispensed prescription volume in the U.S. grew at a 0.9 percent pace.
Factors influencing the market’s slower growth in 2008 included higher demand for less-expensive generic drugs, lower new product sales, and reduced consumer demand due to the economic turndown.
Across the major therapy classes, lipid regulators were the most widely dispensed retail prescription medications on a volume basis in 2008, followed by codeine and combinations, anti-depressants, ACE inhibitors and beta blockers. In terms of overall prescription sales sold through both retail and non-retail channels, antipsychotics led all therapy classes followed by lipid regulators, proton pump inhibitors and seizure disorder medications.
As legislators and regulators ponder additional rules restricting marketing of pharmaceuticals, they should keep in mind that this trend of slow to almost no growth will continue for the foreseeable future, with negative sales growth predicted in the coming years due to patent expirations and a drought in the labs.
It is not in the interest of the American people to regulate away one our last remaining manufacturing sectors. These rule exasperate the elimination of high paying pharmaceutical research and sales jobs.
This lack of growth and unfriendly regulatory environment will also have a direct negative effect on research funding for our medical schools and universities.