The pharmacy market - France

Pharmacies are physical outlets for the sale of medicines and body care products. Pharmacy is the specialty that brings together pharmacists working in these places, intermediaries in distribution to the public. The players involved in the French pharmacy market are pharmaceutical laboratories, wholesaler-distributors, the French government, regional health agencies, pharmacies and groups of pharmacy chains. The global market for drugs at producer prices is growing rapidly. According to IQVIA, it has grown by over 12% in 2021, to exceed $1,400 billion. It is expected to continue to grow at a CAGR of 5.70% over the period 2022-2028, reaching $2,067 billion in 2028. [GlobeNewswire]. This growth is particularly evident in global spending by the pharmaceutical industry, which has been rising steadily since the pandemic. On a European scale, France ranks second in terms of the number of pharmacies(21,760 in 2022), behind Spain and ahead of Germany. The French market has been undergoing major restructuring since the health crisis.Growing since 2015, it has seen a particularly sharp increase post-health crisis, with market sales rising from €39.77 billion in 2019 to €47.808 billion in 2022, representing a 20% increase in3 years . Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, pharmacists' dispensaries have been called upon to help on the anti-pandemic front, whether for advice, tests or vaccines. [Insee] Today, pharmacies are gradually moving towards digitizing their processes. Customers seem ready to give pharmacists a greater role in looking after their health. Finally, the traditionally standardized offering is beginning to diversify, notably within pharmacist groups. These cooperatives now have a dual mission: to negotiate competitive prices with wholesalers and laboratories, but also to develop brands with shared values, with a view to creating a brand image and a unique offering. Another complex issue is the remuneration of pharmacists, threatened by falling drug prices. A reform of pharmacy remuneration has therefore been put in place between 2018 and 2020 to protect the profession by introducing three new dispensingfees per prescription, which can be added together to compensate for the drop in sales margins.