Russian National Drug Sector Strategy Call

A call for "an adequate, clear-cut pharmaceutical industry developmentstrategy" has come in a report in the Russian journal Ekspert.

It says the market has been swamped with imports due to "unchecked foreign trade liberalization" (Marketletters passim), accompanied by the collapse of the Soviet drug supply system. As a result, Russia lacks domestically-produced drugs and the share of such products on the market is in steady decline.

A report by the Boston Consulting Group says that in 1996 the market had grown to $3.3 billion from $1.5 billion in 1993, yet domestic drugs' share had fallen to 30% from 50%. Over this time, the share of imports from eastern Europe, India and Turkey grew from 40% in 1993 to about 47%, while imports from the west rose from a share of 10% in 1993 to 23%.