Can the Slumping Pharmaceutical Industry Rebound?

This article analyses the slump in the pharmaceutical industry. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry faced its slowest growth in almost a decade last year, and analysis expect 2005 to present much of the same. U.S. prescription sales increased only 8.3 percent lo $235.4 billion in 2004. Patient volume for the remaining COX-2s initially increased by more than 15 percent following the withdrawal, driven by a 15 percent increase in new therapy starts and a two-thirds share of all Vioxx switches, according to IMS.