Most innovations in the healthcare system are related to develop of information technologies. Hereby legislative initiatives can concern all market segments and all participants.
First of all the question is about the law on marking of drugs, which must become obligatory from January 1st, 2020. The pilot project started on February 1st, 2017 in six regions of Russia and will last until the end of 2018. Manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacy chains are involved in the project.
The new system of control of prices in state purchases of drugs for beneficiaries is introduced from 2018. This system is developed so that to block conclusion of state contracts for drug procurement at excessive prices automatically.
An electronic prescription, electronic sick list, electronic card and unified state healthcare information system must become obligatory in everyday work of a doctor.
Online cash registers became obligatory for large and medium pharmacy retail sector from July 1st, 2017, and small trade must also transfer to online cash register equipment from July 1st, 2018.
The question on permission of online sale of drugs is raised with permanent regularity. But adoption of this law is postponed with the same permanence, not until January 1st, 2019.
"Survival" of participants in post-crisis concisions became the main question in 2017 in the pharmaceutical market. Despite the fact that in 2017, the market demonstrates the positive trend, there are "losses" amount distributors and pharmacy chains.
In 2017, the volume of the Russian pharmaceutical market reached 1,629 billion rubles, which is 8% higher than the previous year. Sales of drugs in physical terms grew by 6% and made 6.3 billion packages. Positive dynamics in packages in 2017 is indicative of improvement of the purchase power of the population and reduction of influence of the social and economic factors on the pharmaceutical market.
The main contribution to market growth was made by the commercial segment of drugs. The retail market dynamics continued 2016 positive trend in packages. Market growth in rubles is lower than in 2016. This was also affected, among other things, by low flu and ARVI morbidity level, which did not lead to growth of the demand for the "seasonal" drugs.
Two main trends in consumption of drugs include growth of the share of domestic drugs and consumer’s switch to generics. But if the consumer switches to branded generics mainly, in state procurement volumes of generics sold under International Non-proprietary Name (INN) are also growing.
The share of imported drugs in the overall market in the end of 2017 was 70% in money and 38% in packages. Import substitution works mostly in the state procurement segment +2% to 2016 share. In the commercial segment the share of the domestic drugs is growing in slower rated +0.5%. Thus, the top places in the manufacturer's ranking belong to the foreign companies: Sanofi, Novartis, Bayer.
The consolidation and unification process in the pharmacy markets builds up speed, which leads to enlargement of the market players and increases their market share. The share of TOP-20 has grown by two times since 2014 and made 51%. The Association of Independent Pharmacies "ASNA" achieved the best results in uniting pharmacies and pharmacy chains with 13.8% of the market and representing 8,365 sales outlets. Among the "traditional" chains, the pharmacy chain "36.6" has the largest share (4.9%). With a small break off the top three leaders are rounded out by "Rigla" with the share of 4.7%.
In 2017, the positive concentration trend in the distribution segment changed for the negative one. TOP-10 companies accounted for about 72% (-8% to 2016 figure). Diversification and expansion of the distributors business sphere, vigorous growth of companies from the "Second dozen". Financial difficulties of the market leaders – all this changed the rating of pharmaceutical "wholesalers" noticeably. In 2017, "Protek" distributor retained the first position, having occupied 18.1%. Distributor "Katren" occupied the second line with a share of 17.6%. In 2016, TOP-3 is rounded out by "Pulse" distributor with the share of 12.4%.