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Thailand Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q1 2010Published by: Business Monitor International Published: Nov. 10, 2009 - 79 Pages Table of Contents
AbstractIn BMI’s Pharmaceutical Environment Ratings (BER) table for Q110, Thailand slipped from ninth totenth position among the 15 key markets surveyed in the Asia Pacific region. Thailand’s growing andageing population represents a substantial commercial opportunity for drugmakers, although itscontroversial compulsory licensing scheme is deterring foreign investment, as is its political instability.Additionally, the local operating environment is considered to be negative from the point of view offoreign research-based companies, due to a lack of data exclusivity, rife counterfeiting and parallelimportation, compounded by the introduction of health economics in the approval of patented drugs.However, prospects for patent law reform are improving, as a result of Thailand’s involvement in regionalharmonisation initiative and the resumption of talks with the US over a free trade agreement (FTA). Nevertheless - and despite the currently low per capita spending on medicines - Thailand’spharmaceutical market is expected to perform better than most of its regional peers, as global economicdownturn continues to stifle development. The market was worth THB120.4bn (US$3.53bn) in 2008, andis expected to post a year-on-year (y-o-y) growth of 7.67% in local currency terms for 2009. By 2014, thevalue is projected to have topped THB186bn (US$6.64bn), growing at a compound annual growth rate(CAGR) of 7.50% and 11.89% in local currency and US dollar terms, respectively, as the formerappreciates against the latter. However, we must caution that there are significant risks to this optimisticforecast, primarily political instability. In fact, political woes are expected to continue to hamper economic development. Given the depths of thefault lines between the two opposed political camps in Thailand, we expect progress on resolving thesituation to be slow. Consequently, we expect gross domestic fixed capital formation growth to average3.5% for the coming years, as investor sentiment is weighed down by political unrest. As such, we areprojecting real GDP growth to average at below-trend 3.2% (a level below Thailand’s potential) over thenext decade, which will also weigh down on progress in the field of healthcare modernisation, given thereliance on public funding in this area. While there were few major industry and company news in the past few months, it has been reported thatphase III clinical trials of an HIV vaccine - a prime-boost combination of AIDSVAX B/E, originallydeveloped by VaxGen, and Sanofi Pasteur’s ALVAC HIV - resulted in significant lowering of HIVinfection rates. The clinical study, executed by the Thai Ministry of Public Health with assistance fromlocal and US-based researchers, was carried out on over 16,000 adult volunteers in Thailand. The positiveresults are highly significant, as this is the first time a prophylactic agent has shown efficacy against HIV.However, BMI cautions that it is unlikely that this particular vaccine will ever be made widely available. Instead, it will provide a platform for further research into a more efficacious agent. Get Full Details About This Report >> |
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