30 January 2020 - Deborah Wilkes
Boiron's sales in its home market of France dropped by 12.6% in 2019, following a long debate about the pros and cons of homeopathy.
Noting that homeopathy was “under public attack” in France, Boiron said the government had announced a progressive end to reimbursement of homeopathic medicines.
The French government cut the reimbursement rate for homeopathic medicines from 30% to 15% from 1 January 2020 and plans to end reimbursement altogether from 1 January 2021 (click here to read the News story).
Boiron said it continued to “resolutely pursue its efforts to obtain continued reimbursement of homeopathic treatments by the French national health insurance scheme.
Performance by region
The majority of homeopathy specialist Boiron's turnover, 56.3%, was generated in France where sales of EUR313 million (USD345 million) were down by 12.6% compared to 2018.
Sales in the rest of Europe were down by 2.5% at constant exchange rates to EUR133 million.
Sales in North America dropped by 5.7% at constant exchange rates to EUR87.7 million, but sales in other countries were up by 8.6% to EUR23.1 million.
Worldwide sales decreased by 8.6% at constant exchange rates to EUR557 million in 2019. Including the impact of currency translations, sales as reported were down by 7.8%.