ABSTRACT
Of the total worldwide market for pharmaceuticals of some $175 billion, a remarkable $10+ billion is due to fluorine-containing products. This is based on some 500 fluorine-containing products out of a total of 10,000 products. The percentage of the sales costs due to the costs of the active ingredients is somewhat lower than that for agrochemicals, being about 10%. The value of the fluorinated intermediates contributing to these fluorine-containing products is about $100 million - some three times larger than that for agrochemicals, despite the larger volume turnover of the latter. Over half of this market is due to a few blockbusters. At present the leading F-drug is Cipro (Bayer), an antibiotic with total sales of $1.2 billion (compare the leading drug Zantac at $3.6 billion). Other major F-drugs are fluoxetine (Lilley), an antidepressant ($1 billion); fluticasone (Glaxo), a fluorinated
in excess of 1000 tonneslyear, which should be taken up by the end of the century if the expected market growth is realized.
