Brazil Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q4 2009

Brazil's pharmaceutical market was valued at US$16.9bn in 2008. Pharmaceutical sales in Brazil are showing true resilience to economic troubles in the country, in line with BMI's expectations for the market. For Q409 10-year forecasts have been introduced into the Brazil Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare report. From 2008-2018 BMI forecasts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.9%, making the country a truly attractive long-term prospect for multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Increasing demand for basic medicines is a strong driver for growth. While many countries have witnessed volume contractions for medicines in 2009, despite value growth, the number of products sold grew by 2.32% in H109 in Brazil. Expected contractions were witnessed in US dollar values due to real devaluation. While this will limit prospects for foreign manufacturers at present, anticipated restrengthening makes this merely a short-term dynamic.

Many legislative changes have been implemented or proposed throughout 2009. Proposed revisions to Brazil's patent legislation could have detrimental consequences to multinational research-based pharmaceutical companies. A bill, put forward for consideration by the authorities in mid-2009, could potentially eliminate the use of secondary and polymorph patents, while another could allow intellectual property (IP) protection for biological materials, but only for Brazilian researchers. Meanwhile the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) implemented a resolution that will restrict sales of nonprescription medicines to behind the counter, albeit still available without a prescription. The move is aimed at improving the service given by pharmacists and limiting potential adverse drug reactions.

New advertising legislation was also introduced. Among the key changes to legislation, gifts or publicity in prescription form have been prohibited. Stricter guidelines surrounding the communication of safety/product information will ensure television/radio adverts verbalise such warnings, while text sizes for warnings must be at least 35% of the size of the largest font used in an advert. Television commercials for medicines are not allowed at a time when programmes aimed at children or adolescents are being aired.

Multinational activity was also high in 2009. Japanese multinational drugmaker Astellas has established an affiliate in Brazil, Meanwhile Italy-based multinational drugmaker Zambon agreed a deal which will outsource the manufacturing of products in Brazil to Boehringer Ingelheim. GSK formed a partnership with Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) to develop and manufacture vaccines for 'pressing public health priorities' in Brazil. GSK will transfer technology for the production of its 10-valent conjugate vaccine for paediatric pneumococcal disease Synflorix as well as establishing a research and development (R&D) collaboration programme to develop a vaccine for dengue fever.