The pharmaceutical sector appears to have the ideal characteristics for using electronic business tools that support B2B relations (business to business) for buyers as well as sellers. Firstly, many of the products that it sells lend themselves to a simple description and exhibit a high degree of standardization. Furthermore, the specific challenges faced by the pharmaceutical sector, such as managing product recalls, is encouraging collaboration along the whole value chain. These factors increase the use of commercial and communication platforms in the sector.  Finally, the global nature of the pharmaceutical sector means that companies have to sell or manufacture in diverse international markets. 

Commercial B2B platforms support the buying and selling activities of pharmaceutical companies in different ways. Pharmaceutical companies appear to be the typical online purchaser. Nearly 40% of companies in the pharmaceutical sector state that they use the internet or other IT networks for purchasing goods or services, a figure slightly lower than the weighted average for all sectors. It should also be noted that the difference between small and large companies is relatively insignificant, with more than 30% of micro-companies (1-9 employees) in the sector claiming to carry out online purchases. A more detailed analysis reveals that the strategic importance of online purchases is significantly limited. Only 7% of all pharmaceutical companies in the EU-7 purchase more than 25% of their supplies online, a figure that is similar to the weighted average of the ten sectors in the survey.

The pharmaceutical sector are more internationalized than the average and 18% of companies deal primarily with international suppliers compared to an average of only 13%. Overall, the bulk of online purchases in this sector come from regional or national suppliers.

In general SMEs have little interest in more sophisticated electronic business tools. Due to the small size of these companies, improving their purchasing (or selling) procedures does not offer them the same advantages as their larger rivals. Furthermore, many electronic business tools are simply not suitable for use by SMEs (the number of purchases made by these companies in general is not sufficient to warrant the use of an online auction). The percentage of large pharmaceutical companies that use specific IT applications to support their buying procedures (36%) is far higher than for smaller companies.

Although a high percentage of pharmaceutical companies purchase online, internet purchases represent on a small proportion of total purchases. Furthermore, the specific IT applications that support purchasing activities are primarily used by large companies.