Abstract
Pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement regulations create a dilemma to achieve a single pharmaceutical market in the EU. Although considerable progress has been made in the past years in harmonization of the pharmaceutical markets, the pricing decisions or systems have continued to be operated on a national basis, which results in price differences across the member states. These price differences create opportunity for parallel trade which, in combination with the EU single market principle calling for the free movement of goods, could lead to reduction in price differences. This paper is simply aimed at analyzing price differences in the European pharmaceutical market, employing annual 1994-2003 IMS Health Data from five EU countries (Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain) on prices of molecules used to treat cardiovascular disease. The study concludes that price differences still exist, but are decreasing overtime.