Russia's pharma industry impresses as economy continues to grow; report

The Russian pharmaceutical industry will continue to expand due to government initiatives and increased healthcare spending, predicts a new report by health care business specialists GlobalData. The report states that Russia’s efforts to boost its pharmaceutical sector have been rewarded with strong and steady growth and the increased implementation of domestically produced treatments.

The country’s pharmaceutical market soared from a 2005 valuation of $6.6 billion to almost three times that in 2010, when it was worth approximately $18.7 billion, climbing at a remarkable compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23%. Following comprehensive data analysis, GlobalData expects this growth to continue at a less staggering, yet still impressive, CAGR of 9.5% to reach $46.4 billion by the end of 2020.

This surge in value is attributed to the introduction of national programs such as Health in 2006, and PharmMed 2020, which made its debut in 2009. As part of the latter, Russia has significantly increased R&D spending in the field of drugs innovation and created opportunities for the development of the health care industry. Putin’s government has laid out goals to increase the domestic share of the pharmaceutical market to 50% by 2020, and the share of domestic innovative drugs to 60% by the same year.