The upward trend can be seen over a decade, as the sales of the retail pharmacies doubled. Pharmaceutical retail lost more than 1,000 companies in the past ten years, which shows a consolidation of this sector, following deals between top actors and the rest of the operators. There are fewer than 4,400 companies in this business today.
Consolidation in pharmaceutical retail mostly shows at the top, with the five largest networks constantly increasing market share compared with the number of pharmacies in the country. While their market share stood at 11% ten years ago, now they account for more than 27%.
There were 8,099 pharmacies in Romania in 2019, slightly (almost 50) fewer than in 2018, National Statistics Institute data show.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)