Chile's improving regulation system should bring high quality medicines to the local market and eventually reduce the country's medical spending. The tightened bioequivalent regulations will boost genuine medicine sales and force similares out of the market. It will also help to bring local drugmakers up to international standards, and in the long term, improve their competitiveness in the domestic and regional markets. Foreign drugmakers with products which have been held to tougher regulation standards in the international market will benefit from the legislation immediately.
Headline Expenditure Projections
- Pharmaceuticals: CLP1,605bn (US$3.3bn) in 2012 to CLP1,723bn (US$3.6bn) in 2013; +8.1% in local currency terms and +7.5% in US dollar terms.
- Healthcare: CLP9,637bn (US$19.8bn) in 2012 to CLP10,550bn (US$22.1bn) in 2013; +9.5% in local currency terms and +11.2% in US dollar terms.
Risk/Reward Rating: Chile's ratings score for Q213 stands at 53.7 out of 100, with the country ranked 7th out of the 17 markets in the Americas matrix. This is also the case for all other countries in BMI's proprietary system, which ranks pharmaceutical markets according to attractiveness to multinational drugmakers. A minor re-weighting of one of the RRR components is being implemented to improve the tool, and the adjusted scores for all markets will be published in the Q313 updates of the Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare reports.
Key Trends And Developments
- In January 2013, the Chilean President, Sebastian Pinera, along with Health Minister, Jaime Manalich, and Deputy Finance Minister, Julio Dittborn, signed a supreme decree on bioequivalent medicines and given authority to the National Medicines Agency (ANAMED) to approve the drugs. The government stated that the new legislation aims to facilitate access to bioequivalent drugs in Chile and reduce medicine prices. The president has planned to increase the number of approved bioequivalent drugs to 3,000 over the next four years. The Institute of Public Health in Chile (ISPCH) will be responsible for the certification of bioequivalence through ANAMED.
- In February 2013, generic pharmaceutical firm Sandoz planned to launch six drugs on the Chilean market in H113. The company will launch omeprazole, which is indicated for gastroesophageal reflux; antihypertensive therapeutic losartan; antidepressant escitalopram; immunosuppressive mycophenolate mofetil; rosuvastatin, which reduces cholesterol levels in the blood; and antithrombotic and antiplatelet agent clopidogrel. The new drugs will help bolster the company's position in the Chilean market, according to Maria Virginia Monsalve, commercial manager at Sandoz's Chile division
BMI Economic View: An uptick in Chinese economic activity has led to a surge in Chilean economic activity in Q412 that we believe will continue through H113. However, we continue to believe that the next several years will see Chilean real GDP growth trend lower as Chinese copper demand growth trends lower, weighing on Chilean exports and investment. We forecast real GDP growth to fall from our estimate of 5.3% in 2012 to 4.2% in 2013 and 4.6% in 2014.
BMI Political View: Chile's ruling Coalicion por el Cambio (CPC) has settled on two potential candidates for the November-December 2013 presidential election, and we believe that either could mount a strong campaign. While the entry of highly regarded former President Michelle Bachelet Jeria or the already declared third-party campaign of Marco Enriquez-Ominami could complicate the CPC's efforts, we doubt that the election will lead to elevated political risk or significantly alter Chile's fairly orthodox policy course.