BMI’s latest forecast sees the Chilean pharmaceutical market growing by a robust 14.8% in US dollar terms in 2008 and by 9.2% in local currency terms. Applying our improved forecasting model, we now see average annual growth rates for 2008 to 2012 of 7.4% in US dollar terms and 6.9% in peso terms, with the total value of the pharmaceutical market, including retail and institutional sectors reaching US$1.84bn by 2012 in final consumer prices, representing a doubling of market value since 2006. The administration of President Michelle Bachelet has bet much of its credibility on expanding healthcare coverage. Increased state spending and broader economic growth should continue to buoy the market, despite ongoing obstacles to market entry for research-based pharmaceutical manufacturers. A strike by healthcare workers and miners in April over working conditions and action by truckers in June underlined wider discontent and pressure on the government to increase spending. A drought led to further spikes in energy prices as hydroelectric output fell sharply over the first three months of the year. Whatever the challenges facing the current government, Chile remains a relative oasis of clean governance, stability and economic openness and has ratified Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US. Nonetheless, for the research-based pharmaceutical industry, the intellectual property (IP) environment remains deficient. In its latest report, the US Trade Representative (USTR) names Chile as one of nine ‘Priority Watch’ countries, among the most persistent IP violators in the eyes of US officials. Chile ranks eighth out of the 10 major markets in BMI’s Q308 Business Environment Rankings of the Americas. Chile’s lack of progress on IP means foreign direct investment in the sector remains limited. Recent deals include the May announcement by US medical device company Thermo Fisher Scientific of a partnership with Chile’s Alta Tecnología to promote its informatics lines in Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia. In June, Switzerland’s Merck Serono announced the purchase of exclusive distribution rights for some 30 prescription drugs from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) in major regional markets, including Chile. But most activity consists of Chilean firms expanding into smaller and less regulated markets. Meanwhile, political pressure is growing to take action against alleged price gouging by retail pharmacies – despite Chile’s relatively low drug prices. In June 2008, a congressman and government pharmaceutical supplier CENABAST publicised a study showing the differences between the prices paid by the state to wholesalers and the retail prices offered by the three retail pharmacy chains that control 93% of the market – Salcobrand, Cruz Verde and Farmacias Ahumada. The three chains remain the focus of an ongoing probe by the country’s economic prosecutor, FNE. They have also faced criticism for failing to stock the ‘morning-after pill’. Any move to break the market power of the pharmacies would represent the biggest shake up in the Chilean market for many years.