Last year can be deemed as the best one for the domestic pharmaceutical market, according to data released by the IMS Health. The sales of medicines topped BGN 1.6bn, which is an increase of 13.9% YoY. Bulgarians paid out BGN 200m more for taxes and health insurance contributions in 2008 compared to 2007. There are five companies, which account for 80% of the medicines' distribution. These are Sopharma Trading with 22% share of the market, followed by Libra (20.5%), Sting, Higia and Pharcol. The distributor Commercial League was not included in the rankings as it does not provide data for its sales.