For pharmaceutical market the 2015 was full of events which influenced its development in some way or another, and actions which we're still to determine.
The main attention was paid to the influence of crisis tendencies on the parameters of drug consumption. In 2015, the pharmaceutical market demonstrated an opposite tendency with the increase of dollar and euro rates: the higher was the currency as a ruble, the lower was the gain of the pharmaceutical market to the same period of 2015. The lowest point for the market was in the 4th quarter of 2015 when the parameters even in the price parameter were lower than in the 4th quarter of 2014. In 2015, the volume of the Russian pharmaceutical market reached 1,259 billion rubles, which is 9.3% higher than the previous year. In 2015, the volume of drug sales in the natural way continued to decrease and reduced by 4.2% and amounted to 5.1 billion of units, such fall of the parameter was last observed in 2009.
Within contingency measures legally stated in Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation N 98-p from January 27, 2015 “On approving plan of primary measures for providing sustainable economic development and social stability in 2015”, a part of the initiatives was applied to the drug supply:
- support of the manufacturers releasing the drugs on the List of Vital and Essential Drugs with price less than 50 rubles;
- adoption of the Decree on restrictions of state purchases of foreign drug products (“Three is a crowd”)
- provision of additional 16 billion rubles for drug supply to the benefit holders.
Except for the contingency plan, a range of initiatives and offers was discussed during 2015, which to this or that extent should allow stable drug supply:
- issue on the permit to allow parallel import of the drug products to Russia;
- a possibility to introduce mandatory licensing for certain drugs;
- issue on the permit to sell over-the-counter drug products outside the pharmacies;
- issue on the permit to sell drug products online;
First results in the import substitution and increase of the share of the domestic manufactured drugs became evident in 2015. The share of domestic drug products increased by 4% and amounted to 27% by the end of the year. The most vivid examples were seen in the sphere of innovative and costly items that is why in the segment of drug supply to the benefit holders the share of Russian drugs increased from 13% in 2014 to 26% in 2015. It should be noted that as a program of import substitution Pharma-2020, 130 state projects on drug development in Russia, which in the future will allow to increase the part of Russian drugs. Still Russian pharmaceutical market depends from import. 73% of drug products expressed as money value consumed by the population are manufactured abroad. Thus, the top places in the manufacturer's ranking belong to the foreign companies:
Sanofi, Bayer, Novartis. It should be noted that only two domestic manufacturers Otisipharm and Pharmstandard that had been one structure are included in TOP-20 ranking.
The main tendency of 2015 for distributor and pharmaceutical sphere was consolidation, with various reasons behind it.
There has been a change in main distributors. During the year 2015, two main players that were in the TOP-20 left the market: Oriola and Imperia-Pharma. The largest Russian distributors occupied the free spaces, thus the share of TOP-3 companies increased from 45% to 49%. In 2015, the leader on sales volume was Katren distributors, thus increasing the part to 20%. Protek distributor occupied the second place with share of 18%. Rosta distributor occupied the last place in TOP-3 in 2015. In 2015, the process of mergers and acquisitions continued; in a way the year holds the record in terms of concluded and announced deals. Apothecary Chain 36.6 Company became the leader in the consolidation process. By the sales volume, Rigla chain continues to occupy the top position in the ranking, followed by Apothecary Chain 36.6, with Implosia in the third place. Their cumulative segment was 10%.
Download Annual Report 2015 - Russian Pharmaceutical Market (pdf)