43% of doctors prefer to prescribe original drugs, according to an online survey by the RNC Pharma analyst company and the Doktor Na Rabote (Doctor at Work) social media service for doctors.

Despite the relatively good results of last year, the overall profitability in the supply chain leaves much to be desired. First of all, this concerns the retail segment of the market, since the growth in 2019 is significantly lower than inflation, without any positive outlook, apart from the coronavirus, which might somewhat stabilize the situation. In addition, the Russian pharmaceutical retail market decided to follow the “big retail” and enter the era of global transformation together with the online segment.

The coronavirus epidemic in China has definitely become one of the central issues of the early 2020. It is difficult to predict how the situation will evolve, and what consequences the healthcare system and the economy will have to face. However, the aspect of a certain cultural phenomenon in our country, formed by COVID-2019, is hard to ignore.

In 2019, Russia manufactured 425.3 bln RUB worth of pharmaceutical drugs (manufacturers’ dispatch prices, VAT included), which is in monetary terms (rubles) 26.6% higher than that in 2018. The results are the highest since the financial crisis between 2015 and 2016. The dynamics in physical terms are +7.4% in units and +6.4% in minimum dosage units (MDU), with 4.5 bln units of ready-made pharmaceuticals, or 75 bln MDUs.

The volume of Russian households’ purchases of veterinary drugs amounted to 20.6 bln RUB (retail prices, VAT included) in 2019. The volume of purchases in physical terms is over 110 mln units (or over 199 mln MDUs), including veterinary products sold in single-unit packages.

Despite a flurry of criticism of the activities of the former members of the Ministry of Health, only 5% of doctors believe that the new Government of the Russian Federation will make fundamental changes to the key issues of the organization of the health system, according to an online survey by the RNC Pharma analyst company and the Doktor Na Rabote (Doctor at Work) social media service for doctors. Most respondents (43%) are sure that not only personnel changes, but also a revision of the decision-making and responsibility system is necessary to change the current situation.

Between January and November 2019, Russia imported 118 bln RUB worth of APIs (customs clearance prices, VAT included), which is in monetary terms (rubles) 35.6% higher than that of the same period in 2018. The dynamics in physical terms (tons) are +12.9%, with 12 thousand tons. Price rises are obviously the main growth factor here.

Between January and November 2019, Russia imported 33.1 bln RUB worth of veterinary drugs (customs clearance prices, VAT included), which is surprisingly higher than the import of feed supplements (32.5 bln RUB). The reason lies both in the sudden growth of veterinary drug imports (+41.7% in rubles) and the significant drop in feed supplement imports (-7.7%). The import of veterinary APIs still has the highest dynamics among the veterinary product imports (+66.3% and 2.9 bln RUB).

Between January and November 2019, Russia imported 703.9 bln RUB worth of ready-made pharmaceutical drugs (customs clearance prices, VAT included), which is in monetary terms (rubles) 47.7% higher than that of the same period in 2018, and 116.3 bln RUB worth of in-bulk drugs, with the dynamics in monetary terms of +18.9%.

Between January and November 2019, Russia manufactured 383.9 bln RUB worth of pharmaceutical drugs (manufacturer’s prices, VAT included), which is in monetary terms (rubles) 25.8% higher than the production volume in 2018. In physical terms, the production volume is 4.1 bln units, or 67.2 bln minimum dosage units (MDU). The dynamics in physical terms are +6.5% in units and +5.3% in MDU.