This paper outlines some of the reasons that led to the current economically embarrassing situation of pharmacies in Portugal. The purpose of the paper is to understand if the inability of the pharmacy owner contributed to the degradation of the economic sector. To meet the goal defined, this paper went through an analysis of the performance management of pharmacies based on a comparative methodology between those classified as small and medium enterprises (SME) Excellence (a status assigned to SME by a commission belonging to an official entity) that potentially have more solid indicators, and most of the pharmacies that are geographically distributed by districts and the most populated regions of the Portuguese territory. The paper concludes that pharmacies registered a decrease in business results, and pharmacies that hold the status of SME Excellence, registered better management indicators as well as an increase in the reactive capacity against a set of factors that affect the economic performance. There is also evidence of the considerable uneven regional distribution of pharmacies, with more serious and committing results in more populated regions and districts of the country, despite the greater purchasing power that exists in these.

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Economic and financial indicators; Pharmaceutical market; Pharmacies; SME Excellence

• Clinical Medicine - Medical and Health Sciences