People and medicine. The pharmaceutical industry. Worldwide trade.

people and medicine

page B 1.1

Trade

PIcture 31. World populations. Roll over a country to see its population.

	You may have heard the term ‘global economy’. This refers to the idea that all the countries in the world buy and sell things from each other. At the beginning of the 21st century, this trade between countries is fairly open. This means that there are very few restrictions on what someone can buy and where it came from. This opens up large global markets (picture 31).
Pharmaceuticals
	Pharmaceutical products are a major part of this global economy. There is a large demand for medicines. So countries that make these medicines have the opportunity to sell them to a large market across the world.

Picture 32. Chart of share of sales for the top 25 medicines worldwide. Figures for 1998.

	Look at the picture 32. It shows sales of the top 25 prescription medicines. These are the medicines that sell most around the world. Notice that nearly 17% of world sales of the top 25 medicines are from Britain.
World trade in medicines
	There is a huge and growing trade in pharmaceuticals between different countries. Table 1.1a shows the value of imported and exported medicines for 21 different countries. The trade balance is the difference between the amount paid for imports and the amount gained by export sales of pharmaceuticals.

Picture 33. Amount spent on pharmaceuticals. £s per person in 1998.

Country	Exports £ million	Imports £ million	Trade balance £ million
Germany	7,741	4,179	3,562
Switzerland	4,904	2,115	2,790
UK	5,860	3,418	2,442
Ireland	2,620	486	2,134
France	5,193	3,507	1,685
Sweden	2,142	739	1,403
Belgium	3,056	2,380	676
Denmark	620	471	150
Netherlands	1,967	2,043	–76
Austria	809	1,058	–249
Italy	2,344	2,596	–252
Finland	138	394	–255
Portugal	87	441	–358
Greece	70	600	–530
Australia	393	988	–596
Spain	743	1,572	–828
Canada	675	1,525	–850
Japan	686	1,948	–1,262
USA	4,817	5,687	–870

Table 1.1a. Values of imports and exports for various countires in 1998. They are listed in order of their trade balance - the difference between the exports and imports.

World use of medicines

The amount of pharmaceuticals consumed by the population of a country depends on many factors. One main factor is wealth. Often people in more industrialised countries are able to contribute towards the cost of medicines through tax, health insurance programmes or cash. Other countries may not have sufficient cash wealth to import medicines. Culture is important too, since local herbal remedies may be consumed in preference to pharmaceuticals.

The bar chart shows the cost of pharmaceuticals consumed by each person in 1998, for 12 different countries.