Last year, the worldwide prescription market totaled $712 billion based on sales, an increase of $178 billion over the past five years, according to IMS Health. But the rate of growth is slowing considerably. Take a look at the chart at the right and notice that the growth rate in 2001 was 11.8 percent. So the glass is either half full or half empty, depending on your chosen measurement.

While the US is still the largest single market at $286.5 billion, it contributed only 25.5 percent of the total growth to the global market in 2007 – the lowest-ever level of contribution. As IMS noted recently in another report, US sales grew just 3.8 percent last year, the lowest level since 1962.

Asian markets (excluding Japan, but including Australia and New Zealand) grew collectively by 13.3 percent and now represent 11 percent of the total global market, IMS points out. Robust economic growth and expansion of access to healthcare remains the primary reasons. China, South Korea and India grew by 25.7 percent, 10.7 percent, and 13.0 percent, respectively, in 2007.

Want to know the best-selling drugs last year? Please keep reading to see the chart…

Meanwhile, the Japanese market grew 3.6 percent in 2007, higher than the compound annual growth rate of the previous five years, reflecting limited impact from the biennial price cuts which occurred April 1, 2006 and will reoccur on April 1, 2008, IMS notes. This growth took the total market to $65.2 billion for the full year.

Latin America markets totaled $42.4 billion and grew 11.6 percent last year. Brazil, which is a $15.7 billion market, grew by 9.7 percent, while Mexico grew at a 7.5 percent pace, reaching a total size of $11.1 billion. Across the five major European markets, France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Spain, aggregate growth was 4.8 percent and the total market expanded to $140 billion. European markets – apart from those five – are now $81.6 billion in size, and expanded by 10.9 percent in 2007. Among them, Russia and Turkey reflect the largest growth at 20.2 percent and 17.2 percent, respectively.