Pharmaceutical industry in Russia - statistics & facts
The Russian pharmaceutical industry has been prioritizing domestic production and supply of medicines in recent years. Nevertheless, it continues to be dependent on import trade, which reached one trillion Russian rubles in 2022. Several major foreign producers, including Abbott, Bayer, Novartis, Sanofi, and Servier, suspended at least some operations in the country due to the war in Ukraine. Pharmaceutical sales are declining in physical terms, and the revenue increased only slightly in 2023. However, it is projected to grow in the following two years and reach 2.9 billion Russian rubles in 2025. Beside inflation, a major driving force is the evolution of online retail of medicines, legalized during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The pharma e-commerce market was forecast to double between 2022 and 2024.
A decline in production and reduced operations by Western manufacturers were behind the Russian pharmaceutical market's modest growth in 2023. However, price increases and the growing popularity of online medicine retail across the country are expected to contribute to the market growth in the following years.
Pharmaceutical production in Russia
Russian companies produced pharmaceuticals worth 716.5 billion Russian rubles in 2023, up seven percent from the previous year. The production value has steadily increased since 2018 when it was measured at 336 billion Russian rubles. However, in physical terms, production slightly decreased in 2023 compared to the previous year. That year, approximately 4.1 billion packages were manufactured nationwide. Domestic company OTCpharm ranked fourth among the 10 leading pharmaceutical producers by revenue. OTCPharm produced some of the highest-earning brands in the market, including an antiviral medication Arbidol and an analgesic medication Pentalgin.OTC pharmaceuticals in Russia
Roughly 60 percent of total packages of pharmaceuticals sold in Russia in 2023 were over-the-counter products. In other words, to purchase them, customers did not need a prescription from a doctor. The revenue of OTC pharmaceuticals in the country was estimated at 5.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, which was the seventh-highest figure worldwide. A trending OTC segment was biologically active additives (BAAs), or dietary supplements, and vitamins. More than 400 million packages of BAAs were sold in Russia in 2023.A decline in production and reduced operations by Western manufacturers were behind the Russian pharmaceutical market's modest growth in 2023. However, price increases and the growing popularity of online medicine retail across the country are expected to contribute to the market growth in the following years.
