Complementary Medicine Growth

Complementary medicines industry revenue has grown 54% to $3.5b over the past five years, the Industry Survey 2014 has said.

The Survey’s results were announced at the Complementary Medicines Australia launch. It involved 156 complementary medicines companies and data from EuroMonitor, the National Institute of Complementary Medicine and IBIS World. It was conducted online from November to January this year.

The survey found 83% of complementary medicine (CM) companies were expecting to grow their business over the next three years and that 45,000 extra jobs were expected, as 58% of companies expected to have growth in employee numbers also.

It found 62% of companies were engaged in export business and eight out of 10 export countries were in the Asia Pacific region, with NZ the top market.

It found 17% of companies generated $15m or more in annual revenue, the majority in manufacturing, which saw 52% with $15m turnover or greater.

Sales of vitamins and dietary supplements grew by 19% in 2013 to $1.94b, the survey found.

The majority of companies (82%) said excessive regulatory burden by the Therapeutic Goods Administration was a major issue affecting business, with 43% saying high operating costs and 40% discounting of product through supermarket and pharmacy chains.

The National Health and Medical Research Council released CM resources this year which said there were about 10,000 products on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. Click here to view this resource.

Source: pharmacydaily.com.au, Monday 4 August 2014