Brazil - Is there room for more acquisitions in the Brazilian generic market?

Brazil is the most attractive bioequivalent generic market in the Latin American region and will continue to attract the interest of multinationals.

Pharmacy sales of generic medicines increased by 24.0% in value terms and 19.0% in volume terms in 2009. Generic medicines have increased their pharmacy market share in recent years, passing from representing 4.0% of the pharmacy sector by value in 2001 to 15.1% in 2009. In volume terms, generic medicines represented 19.4% of the pharmacy sector by volume in 2009, compared to 4.8% in 2001. Market growth opportunities will continue in 2010 and generics are expected to represent about 22.0% of the pharmacy sector by volume in 2010 and 33.0% by 2014.

Due to its growth potential, foreign producers continue to penetrate the Brazilian generic sector. The American pharmaceutical producer Valeant, for instance, announced the acquisition of a Brazilian generic producer in May 2010. This was its second acquisition in Brazil in less than one month. A number of international and local producers seem interested in the acquisition of the local generic producer Teuto. In 2009, two leading generic producers, Neo Química and Medley, were snapped up by Hypermarcas and sanofi-aventis, respectively.

Further reading - A detailed review of the Brazilian pharmaceutical market is available from Espicom: The Pharmaceutical Market: Brazil (published May 2010)