IMS Health reports that 2006 global pharmaceutical sales grew 7.0% to $643 billion, with “specialist-driven” products accounting for 62% of market growth. Sales in India and China increased 17.5% and 12.3% to $7.3 billion and $13.4 billion, respectively. Latin American sales grew 12.7% to $33.6 billion, and Asian-Pacific and African sales increased 10.5% to $66 billion. North American sales increased 8.3% to make up 45% of global revenues, but Japanese sales declined 0.4% to $64.0 billion. Sales in the five major European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK) grew 4.4% to account for 19% of worldwide sales. Sales of drugs in the top 10 therapeutic classes increased 10.7% to make up 32.9% of the market. Among the top 10 classes, sales of oncology drugs were the fastest growing, increasing 20.5% to $34.6 billion. IMS estimates that products with a total of more than $18 billion in revenues lost patent protection in seven significant markets last year. However, the number of drugs in Phase I and Phase II rose 7.0% to 2,075. Biotech drugs represent 27% of products in the pipeline .

Source: IMS Health