Friday 7 May 2010

Latvia - What are the future prospects for the pharmaceutical industry?

The pharmaceutical market in Latvia is expected to grow steadily over the next few years.

Latvia is among the few economies in Central & Eastern Europe that is expected to continue contracting in 2010, due to falling domestic demand. Whilst the economic situation will affect the growth of the pharmaceutical market, a continued increase in the value of imports will result in moderate growth. Imports dominate the market; Latvia has a small number of drug makers which concentrate on former Soviet markets.

The development of biotechnology was seriously hindered in the 1990s with the closure of many large factories and plants. However, the pace of development has picked up since Latvia joined the EU in 2004. Latvia has made progress in biomedicine, but it has not yet reached EU levels. R&D capabilities are strong but public spending on R&D is low.

Further reading - An in-depth review of the Latvian pharmaceutical market is available from Espicom: The Pharmaceutical Market: Latvia (published April 2010)

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