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Strong competition continues to sucked out smaller pharmacies out of the tough Swedish market

Wednesday, 20 February 2013

The enthusiasm which the Swedish pharmacy entrepreneurs had three years ago when the sector was deregulated is not bearing the fruits which those investors thought the sector will provide.

The smaller and newly created pharmacies are seeing their operations being sucked in by hard competition from the larger ones, new figures show. In 2010 the first new private pharmacies were established the deregulated Swedish pharmacy market. Then within a very short time, Sweden leaped from nothing to 200 new pharmacies being created.

But now, the creation of new pharmacies have virtually stopped or the rate of creation slowed, new figures from the Swedish Pharmacy Association shows and identified that just 34 new pharmacies were established last year.

The fact that fewer new pharmacies are being established now is a sign that the market is becoming saturated, according to Johan Wallér, CEO of Swedish Pharmacy Association.

Most of Sweden's 1274 pharmacies are operated by any of the four major players: government's Apoteket, Pharmacy Heart, Crown Droghandel and Doc Morris.

Johan Wallér thinks that more changes in the pharmacy market is coming in the coming years as the eight major chains plan to merge and thus most pharmacies run by small business owners will be completely wiped out.

"One of the objectives of deregulation was that it would allow for small-scale entrepreneurs to thrive. We do not know if such will be able to be delivered," says Johan Wallér to radio Sweden.
by Scancomark.com Team

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