Sweden has secured buyers for some 465 pharmacies up for sale as part of the demonopolization of the country’s retail drug market. Together, the 4 new actors will control more than half of Sweden’s around 900 pharmacies, which were previously all owned by the state-run Apoteket monopoly. In order to facilitate their sale, the 465 pharmacies up for tender were subdivided into eight clusters by Apoteket Omstrukturering AB (OAB), the company formed to oversee the restructuring process. Eva-Britt Gustafsson, managing director of OAB, explained that the four buyers would help set the stage for a well-functioning Swedish pharmacy market. We feel that this creates a good market structure made up of a number of actors with varying emphasis and geographical coverage, said Gustafsson in a statement. Apoteket AB will continue to operate around 300 pharmacies, while the country’s remaining pharmacies will be run by smaller private operators. The combined sale price for the eight clusters amounted to 5.9 billion kronor ($857 million), as four parties swooped to control a major share of the re-regulated market, according to a statement released by OAB early last week. The sale price exceeded expectations, said OAB Chairperson Birgitta Böhlin. The aim of the pharmacy reform is, among other things, to safeguard the secure provision of pharmaceuticals at low pharmaceutical prices, said Böhlin, speaking at press conference last week. Apoteket Hjärtat, owned by private equity firm Altor, is to be become the largest actor on the market having bought two clusters comprising 208 pharmacies, with a turnover of 7.1 billion kronor and 1,500 employees.