Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14609
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Silverman E.
Which Country Spends The Most On Meds?
Pharmalot 2008 Nov 13
http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/11/which-country-spends-the-most-on-meds/
Full text:
A report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development finds that the average OECD country spent $401 – measured in purchasing power parities, or PPPs – per person in 2005, and half of OECD countries had per capita spending within 20 percent of the average. Not surprisingly, the US had the highest level of per capita expenditure, at $792 PPP, and Mexico the lowest, at $144 just 18 percent of the US amount (click on the chart to enlarge).
Pharmaceutical expenditures – in common with healthcare spending overall – continue to outstrip the average growth of OECD economies, according to the OECD’s Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy report. The pharmaceutical sector accounts for about one-fifth of health spending, on average, in OECD countries, and nine OECD countries account for more than 80 percent of global sales of the pharmaceutical industry, with the US alone accounting for 45 percent.
France and Spain had the greatest volume of consumption per person in 2005, followed by the US and Australia. All of these countries had below-average retail price levels in 2005, except the US, which had retail prices about 30 percent above the OECD average. Differences in prices reflect more than different prices charged by drugmakers, such as distribution costs and in many countries – value-added tax, which can account from a small share to more than half of the price paid.
Although pharmaceutical growth has slowed since the 1990s while other health expenditures have increased more rapidly in recent years, growth in pharmaceutical expenditures continues to exceed the average growth of OECD economies. Nevertheless, the pharmaceutical sector accounts for a minor share of total health expenditure in most OECD countries – the average is 17 percent.
