http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo.asp?report_id=220739

The 2005 edition of OTC Distribution in Europe is the fifth edition of a major industry report published every two years that has been tracking the unfolding themes of change affecting the European market for non-prescription and OTC medicines.

The 2005 edition of the OTC Distribution in Europe study builds on over 10 years of research into the European market for non-prescription-classified, OTC medicines and associated consumer healthcare products. Over these years a number of important themes have emerged and grown to become the key drivers of the industry today.

The European non-prescription medicines and OTC self-medication markets have now entered a new period of rapid change that will unfold over the next two to three years. Deregulation of distribution channels, continuing de-reimbursement on a large scale, abandonment of resale price maintenance, concentration of wholesaler networks, emergence of pan-European pharmacy chains are among the main change drivers. Yet, competition from outside the pharmacy supply chain is also gathering pace with the expansion of general sale lists (GSL) providing the opportunity for the mass-market and a European Court ruling legitimizing Internet and mail order services for OTC pharmaceutical products. Standard retail pricing for brands is also under pressure from private label products and undercutting by the rapid growth of Internet pharmacies.

Also of major importantance is a trend in response to both internal and external competition of pan-European retail pharmacy groupings which are emerging across the European region either as real or 'virtual' chains and pharmacy symbol groups.

While it is abundantly clear that the market place for consumer healthcare today is much different from that of the over regulated pre-prescription to OTC era of 1992, what is less clear is the amount of change that has occurred since the 2002 edition of OTC Distribution in Europe. This as this study shows has been both considerable and highly significant.

The purposes of this important study therefore, are to identify the main themes driving change in the channels through which non-prescription and OTC medicines and associated self-medication products are distributed and to explore and explain the opportunities and challenges that they present to suppliers in the future.

Since the first edition in 1992, the report has been expanded to an 18-country study. However, this latest edition would be incomplete without discussion of the implications of the accession of the new states to the European Union in 2004 and in particular those of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. While Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia featured in the 2002 edition, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are discussed briefly in outline in this the latest edition.

Among some of the key issues identified in the report are: -

- Radical reforms of reimbursement for non-prescription and OTC medicines, pharmacy establishment and the abolition of retail price maintenance for OTC medicines, especially in Germany in 2004, and their implications for the non-prescription and OTC self-medication industry as a whole
- The rapid growth of large ‘virtual’ pharmacy chains or pharmacy symbol groups especially in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands coupled with their moderate growth in the UK and their emergence in Italy and the Nordic and Baltic region and the way these are concentrating buying power across Europe
- Implications of the concentration of pharmaceutical wholesaler’s buying power across European borders and vertical integration into retailing
- Accession of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and the Baltic States into the European Union in 2004 and the challenges and opportunities these new markets present to Europe’s consumer healthcare manufacturers, pharmaceutical wholesalers and pharmacies and general retailers
- A gradual deregulation of the pharmaceutical supply chain especially pharmacy geographic density and ownership rules
- The expansion of general sale lists (GSL) for OTC medicines and the attraction of self-medication to supermarket chains in Europe
- The significance of the Internet Pharmacy as an evolving distribution channel but more significantly as a major agent of change