The mental-health repercussions of the coronavirus could see global sales of psychiatric drugs increase to more than US$40 billion by 2025, according to data and analytics company GlobalData.
Global sales for drugs to treat mental-health disorders such as depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder are expected to reach US$27.4 billion in 2020, an increase of US$717 million from 2019, the company said. It’s forecasting a compound annual growth rate of 8.4 per cent from 2020 to 2025, to reach an estimated US$40.9 billion.
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“Personalized treatment strategies are important for treating psychiatric disorders, which may be exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis,” said Magdalene Crabbe, pharmaceutical analyst at GlobalData, in a press release.
“Responses to therapy are highly diverse and drugs that work for some people may not be effective for others. It is important that people realize that depending on pharmaceutical drugs is not necessarily the solution to the negative impact that COVID-19 will have on people’s mental health. Recovering from the worst pandemic this century has experienced so far will be achieved through a combination of approaches, including psychotherapy, physiotherapy and financial assistance.”
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