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World Pharm Packaging Demnd

World demand for pharmaceutical packaging will increase 4.2 percent per year to $12.7 billion in 2001 (including price increases). Only specialty products and services that aid drug makers in achieving competitive differentiation or reducing costs will fare well in the world marketplace due to intensifying generic competition and tighter drug price controls. These and other trends are presented in World Pharmaceutical Packaging, a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industrial market research firm. Blister packaging will provide the strongest growth prospects due to its adaptability to unit dose, compliance, high visibility and clinical medication formats. Reflecting value-added advantages, global demand for pharmaceutical blister packaging will advance slightly over 6 percent annually to $2.8 billion in 2001. Growth will largely follow developed world trends promoting use in high visibility over-the-counter drug applications as well as unit dose applications for ethical drugs and disposable contact lenses. Plastic bottles will also see above average increases in demand based upon evolving opportunities in the rapidly expanding pharmaceutical industries of Latin America, Eastern Europe and developing Asia/Pacific. Sustained cost advantages, coupled with adaptability to both standard and specialty applications, will push world demand for pharmaceutical plastic bottles up 5.2 percent annually to $3.4 billion in 2001. These containers will benefit the greatest from the rapid expansion of drug producing industries in the developing countries. China will exhibit the most rapid growth among all pharmaceutical packaging markets as investment in drug producing capabilities continues to flow in from the developed world. The more advanced nature of medical delivery systems and drug producing industries will keep the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy the largest markets for pharmaceutical packaging well into the next century. Paper and paperboard and plastic resins will account for 95 percent of consumption of worldwide pharmaceuical packaging. Paper and paperboard will continue to be the largest consumed raw material. Plastic resins, with their versatile applications and improving barrier and aesthetic properties, will continue to displace competitive materials and provide a market of 1.4 billion pounds in 2001. WORLD PHARMACEUTICAL PACKAGING (published 2/98, 371 pages) is available for $3800 from The Freedonia Group, Inc., 767 Beta Drive, Cleveland, Ohio . For further details, please contact Corinne Gangloff by phone , fax or e-mail at . Full text is also available online through commercial database companies and the www.freedoniagroup.com Web site. If information in this release is used for an article, please attribute information from this news release to The Freedonia Group, Inc. (Cleveland, OH) and include, if possible, the price of the report. We would also appreciate (at your convenience) a copy of the article or publication in which we appear.