India Overtakes Germany as Russia's Top Medicine Supplier

As per recent data indicated in the Russian media, it has become public knowledge that India is now Russia's largest pharmaceutical manufacturer and exporter. In 2023, this function was earlier occupied by Western corporates. RNC Pharma provided the data as the basis for the information.

While in 2021 and 2022, Germany was the primary pharmaceutical market for Russia, distribution has moved towards India this year. The number of parcels sent by Berlin to Russia decreased by 20% last year to 238.7 m. In addition, it means that Berlin shipped fewer goods to Russia than the previous year’s result.

Meanwhile, despite the drop overall (about 3%) in exports, in 2022, Russian manufacturers increased their share in the foreign market by 3%. However, Russian drug companies have done more than Indian drug companies and have fulfilled about 294 mln of e-prescriptions.

Unlike the Western pharmaceutical industry, which is subject to more the direct impact of the conflict in Ukraine between the West and Russia because of the sector reduction in non-essential operations and investments in Russia, which do not reflect such a consequence.

An argument renders the scenario with the big companies like Eli Lilly, Bayer, Pfizer, MSD, and others that must stop clinical research. With the reminders, such steps have played a critical role in adjusting the Russian pharmacy sphere from the international level to the domestic one and reducing the number of imported pharmaceuticals.

Instantly, the Russian partners focus on the export prospects of the joint venture projects in Russia and other countries, which becomes their priority. The largest contributor of shipments from France, of 149.3 mn boxes, is in Russia. It has been the case that its exports have experienced a 7.6% increase compared with the past year. Jordan and Belarus responded accordingly and redistributed supplies by 15% and 6.9% of their stock, respectively.

A sharp drop in the number of shipments of drugs from the United Kingdom and Poland — which were around 10.5% and 16.5%, respectively — in comparison to the increase in duty-free and tax-free oral medications for the same period by about 45% show how the war has changed the commerce. By 2023, the Russian drugs were despatched to UAE, Armenia, and Cuba, more particularly, where 35.7 thousand, 1.6 thousand, and 1.5 thousand grips were dispatched correspondingly.

In this media text, the authors show the main steps the pharmaceutical supply chain in Russia had to take due to the Western probation of an oil product from the Ukrainian dispute and identify the biggest troubles for Western pharmaceutical companies.