Government-backed Generics Limiting Netherlands’ Pharmaceutical Market Growth

The Netherlands’ pharmaceutical market value will rise slowly from approximately $6.7 billion in 2014 to $7.2 billion by 2020, with growth restricted by the government’s focus on generic drugs as a cost-containment tool, according to research and consulting firm GlobalData.

The company’s latest report* states that the introduction of preference policies by health insurers has played a significant role in the increasing share of prescriptions dispensed as generic medicines.

Generic substitution at the pharmacy level and drugs prescribed by their International Non-proprietary Name (INN) are permitted in the Netherlands, and physicians have adopted an electronic prescribing system through which the brand name of a drug automatically converts to the INN name.

Joshua Owide, GlobalData’s Director of Healthcare Industry Dynamics, says: “Due to preference policies, health insurers have restricted reimbursement to certain selected groups of medicines.

“Insurers mainly prefer the reimbursement of generic drugs, unless there are financial advantages involved in reimbursing patented medicines. Otherwise, patients are only allowed the reimbursement of non-preferred drugs if there is a medical need, which must be ratified by their physician.”

Actavis, Disphar International, Mylan, Pharmachemie, Apotex and Sandoz are the major generics players in the Netherlands. According to the Dutch Foundation for Pharmaceutical Statistics, generics had a 63.3% share of all prescription medicines sold in the country in 2012.

Owide explains: “The Netherlands’ generic market has huge potential for development due to the high number of leading drugs going off-patent every year.

“However, the impact of increasing amounts of generic drugs will slow the overall growth of the country's pharmaceutical market.”

*CountryFocus: Healthcare, Regulatory and Reimbursement Landscape - The Netherlands