Global pharmaceutical sales up 7 pct.

Global pharmaceutical sales rose 7 percent to $643 billion last year, fueled by strong international demand for cancer treatments and robust growth in the U.S. market spurred by the Medicare drug benefit, a report released Tuesday said.

U.S. prescription drug sales rose 8.3 percent to $274.9 billion last year as the Medicare drug benefit gave more people the opportunity to purchase medicines, according to IMS Health, which tracks prescription information and issued the report.

However, growth is shifting toward emerging markets as less developed countries prosper and spend more money on health care, said Murray Aitken, senior vice president for corporate strategy at IMS.

For example, pharmaceutical sales in Latin America rose 12.9 percent to $27.5 billion while sales in Europe only advanced 4.8 percent to $181.8 billion.

IMS said that products that are prescribed by specialists such as cancer drugs are driving more of the industry's growth as sales increases slow for treatments prescribed by primary care doctors because of more generic competition and over-the-counter products. In 2006, products prescribed by specialists driven contributed 62 percent of the market's total growth, compared with just 35 percent in 2000.

Cancer treatment sales jumped 20.5 percent to $34.6 billion, making such treatments the second largest drug category. Cholesterol treatments represent the largest drug class, with the medicines' sales jumping 7.5 percent to $35.2 billion.

Meanwhile, sales of medicines often prescribed by primary care doctors slowed. For example, sales of proton pump inhibitors, which block the production of stomach acid, rose only 3.9 percent to $24.1 billion as generic medicines and over-the-counter options entered the arena. Earlier in the decade, the class reported double-digit sales increases.