Parallel trade threatens global pharma industry
The growing trend of parallel trade threatens to counter the efforts of pharmaceutical companies to maximise their revenue, warns a new report from Urch Publishing, 'Pharmaceutical Parallel Trade: Past and Future Scenarios'.
The growing trend of parallel trade threatens to counter the efforts of pharmaceutical companies to maximise their revenue, warns a new report from Urch Publishing, 'Pharmaceutical Parallel Trade: Past and Future Scenarios'.
The pharmaceutical industry has accused parallel traders of putting their future research efforts at risk and of increasing the likelihood of dangerous counterfeit products entering the market. However, parallel traders believe that the practice is safe and that they offer consumers value for money.
The report says that the highest incidence of pharmaceutical parallel trade has occurred within the single market of the European Union, owing to legislation encouraging the free movement of goods. Further expansion of the EU will see an increasing number of legal cases as pharmaceutical manufacturers try to prevent the European market being swamped with cheap versions of their leading products from the newer Member States, it warns.
Despite heavy pharmaceutical industry opposition there is also the possibility that other global regions might accept parallel trade, says report author Dr Faiz Kermani. 'Certain countries such as Kenya and the Philippines have made forays into this area, but the big question is whether it can ever occur in the US market - where the pharmaceutical industry derives most of its profits.'
The US is reported to have the highest drug prices in the world, and the pharmaceutical industry has struggled to defend itself in the face of accusations that some drugs being sold in Canada come from the same industrial plant in the US and yet are being sold for two very different prices, the report claims. Recent efforts by the major pharmaceutical companies to stem the flow of cheap drugs across the border have raised the stakes and whatever the outcome, it is bound to cause controversy. 'Pharmaceutical parallel trade can be looked at from moral, economic and legal angles,' explains Dr Kermani, 'but the most influential factor on its development will be political.'