Natural supplements market rises

The crisis on the subsidised drugs market has not affected the natural supplements market, which is set to see sales rise by some 20-25% this year, compared with 2004. “The subsidised drugs and natural supplements markets are two opposed markets and the drop in sales in one of them compensates for the growth in sales in the other,” explained Catalin Vicol, marketing manager with the pharmaceuticals company Walmark. Another peculiarity on the market is the strong growth in competition, which started to show as early as the beginning of this year. “We can say that the battle on this segment started through advertising campaigns.” At the same time, another trend on the market is the shift by consumers to branded products and away from generics. Walmark has launched two new products on the natural supplements segment: the generics Varixinal and Calcium-Magnezium-Zinc. “We will launch more products by the end of the year, but the number of launches will depend on the market surveys we are conducting at the moment,” Vicol said. Consumption of vitamins and nutritional supplements in Romania is much lower than in the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. ZF