A prescription for innovation
Over the years, foreign pharmaceutical producers have invested some $1.1 (zł.3.5) billion in Poland. It's little wonder then, that the drug producers from abroad currently dominate Poland's very fragmented market, where the top five producers' market shares amount to under 30 percent. Polpharma, which mostly offers cheaper, generic drugs, remains the only Polish company among the top medicine makers, ranking third in market share by volume behind GlaxoSmithKlein and Sanofi-Aventis.
Home-field advantage
For several years now, the market has been the scene of a struggle between the foreign firms, which generally produce their own, innovative medicines, and domestic companies that manufacture generic versions. The Association of Pharmaceutical Companies' Representatives in Poland (SPFF), an organization representing foreign pharmaceutical producers in the country, has long criticized the drug-reimbursement system here, by which patients may have money spent on certain drugs refunded by the government.
The group says that the criteria for placing drugs on the reimbursement list are vague and inaccurate, and that government decisions as to which drugs are eligible for reimbursement "marks discrimination towards products delivered by international pharmaceutical companies onto the Polish market," a SPFF statement sent to the WBJ read. "The main goal of the Ministry of Health is to present a list containing mostly generic drugs preferably of Polish production," it continues.
Foreign drug-manufacturers also complain of difficulties in registering innovative drugs and patent violation. "The office for drug registration does not investigate whether the drug reported for registration violates patent rights," reads the statement.
Innovation nation
However, it seems Polish pharmaceutical producers are battling the competition in markets abroad without the help of government favoritism - and are increasingly investing in their own innovations and new drugs. For example, Adamed's hypertension drug Amlozek can be found in pharmacies across Europe and even in the Middle East. The company also established a subsidiary in the US, where anti-cancer medications will be tested in the near future.
Polpharma has also realized the growing importance of innovative products, and spent $17 (zł.54.5) million in 2004 on research. Polpharma and Adamed were among the five founders of the Polish Platform of Technological and Innovative Medicine (PPTIM), which was established by pharmaceutical and biotech companies to lay out the program for the development of the Polish medicine market.
Bioton, Poland's bourse-listed insulin producer, is also rapidly expanding abroad on the strength of its own products. In December it signed a joint venture agreement with Singapore-based SciGen (in which it has a 44.78 percent minority stake) to build a factory in Hefei, where human insulin and a vaccine for hepatitis will be produced. Bioton ambitiously plans to control 15 percent of the Chinese insulin market by 2009. The firm is currently also building a $20 (zł.64) million plant in Russia, which is scheduled to begin production in two years.
