Generics market stifles Korea medicine sales growth outlook

No thanks to younger population preferring this over branded ones.

While developed market growth is expected to be lower than emerging markets, South Korea's medicine sales outlook is weak in comparison to a number of its developed Asia peers.

According to a research note from BMI Research, a highly competitive domestic generic medicine market and limited demand for branded medicines will both continue to repress medicine sales growth.

In addition, despite the country's epidemiological profile forecast to grow significantly over the long term, providing opportunities within the cancer and cardiovascular therapeutic areas in particular, South Korea's population is younger and expected to grow more sluggishly than the majority of its peers. This will limit the increase in demand for medicines going forward.

Here's more from BMI Research:

Nevertheless, given that market size and purchasing power are the key indicators for multinational pharmaceutical firms ' prospects, these are given a higher weighting in the RRI. As such, South Korea scores above all Asian markets for rewards except for Japan and Australia.

South Korea's market expenditure, USD15.2bn in 2016, and its spending per capita (USD30 1), are among the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. This is driven by the high levels of healthcare treatment access and quality.

The country's National Health Insurance provides universal healthcare coverage with considerable government subsidies. However, while this boosts the market's attractiveness thanks to a clear high capacity to afford high-value drugs, the country scores below the regional and sub-regional averages for a number of reward indicators, highlighting inhibitors to market growth.