Ongoing decline for prescription drugㆍhospital medication
Overall pharmaceutical price index 0.4%↑
In the aftermath of COVID-19 last year, the annual consumer price index (CPI) rose only 0.5%, while the pharmaceutical CPI also remained at 0.43p, 0.4% from 102.92 to 103.35 (as of 100 in 2015).
Most of the pharmaceutical CPIs stayed unchanged, but analgesics alone rose more than 5%.
According to Statistics Korea, the price index for analgesics jumped 9.82p or 8.3% from 118.41 in December 2019 to 128.23 in December 2020.
Followed by analgesics, the price index of antitussive increased by 3.3%, gastrointestinal medicine 2.5%, digestant 1.5%, oriental medicine 1.2%, and anti-inflammatory drug 1.0%.
Besides, skin disease medication and oral disinfectant rose by 0.9%, and cold medicine and probiotics gained 0.2%.
Although the vitamin product broke from the downtrend with +0.02p, prescription drug and hospital medication’s CPI dropped 0.5% each.
As of the end of December, the price index for antitussive reached the highest among the other pharmaceutical indexes. This means that the increase was the largest in the past five years.
The analgesics’ price index was 128.23, exceeding 120 with 120.92 of probiotics, while the digestant left at 119.62, oriental medicine 118.87, oral disinfectant 115.10, gastrointestinal medicine 113.85, skin disease medication 112.88, cold medicine 116.60, and anti-inflammatory drug 111.19.
In addition, vitamin product was at 99.49, prescription drug 94.17, and hospital medication 93.08, which were less than 100, recording a lower price index than in 2015.
