Healthcare
27 Feb 15
Perhaps the most significant of the current trends in healthcare is the wave of new product innovation, particularly in therapeutics.
Emerging market countries spend far lower amounts on healthcare as a percentage of GDP relative to developed countries. For example, the US spends 18% of GDP on healthcare – versus 9% for Brazil, 6% for Russia, 5% for China and 4% for India.
The direct correlation between healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP and wealth is as a result of two factors. The first is that a higher quality of healthcare is one of the first things people demand once they accumulate wealth beyond what is required for food and shelter.
The second is that the incidence of diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cancer all increase as people adopt more sedentary lifestyles with less healthy diets. In combination, these two factors should result in healthcare spending growing at above the rate of GDP growth in emerging markets.
