In solvency of moderate severity – Newspaper Kommersant No. 216 (7417) dated 11/22/2022

Slower demand due to the weakening of COVID-19 led to a slowdown in pharmacy chain sales in the third quarter of 2022. And in October, pharmaceutical retailers noticed a real drop in sales. The beginning of 2023 may turn out to be even more difficult for the pharmaceutical retailer, when the Russians will switch to a savings model of behavior due to the crisis. In order to save money, Russians will buy more locally produced medicines and refuse vitamins, experts do not exclude.

The total sales volume in pharmacies for the nine months of 2022 amounted to 1.253 trillion rubles, which is 18% more year-on-year, follows from DSM Group data. However, this result turned out to be lower than analysts’ expectations, who had previously predicted an increase in sales in the pharmaceutical retail for January-September this year by 28%.

The overall picture was spoiled by the results of the third quarter, when sales amounted to 369 billion rubles, an increase of only 3.4%. During this period, there was even a decline in sales, as, for example, in July.

The partial mobilization announced at the end of September led to an increase in sales of certain drugs and medical devices, but on a market scale, the effect was not very significant, adds Nikolai Bespalov, RNC Pharma Development Director.

Sergey Shulyak, CEO of DSM Group, points out that in October – early November, the turnover of the pharmacy market decreased by 5% year-on-year. This is due to the low incidence of COVID-19.

“This year, there was a seasonal increase in demand in August-September, which coincided with the arrival of a new strain of coronavirus infection, but patients tolerate it easily, the disease period is shorter,” explains Mr. Shulyak. He draws attention to the fact that the growing demand for antivirals usually provides a positive trend in pharmacy sales in the fall.

Rustem Muratov, CEO of Binnopharm Group, points out that stabilization is now generally observed in pharmacy retail: sales in money terms remain at the level of last year. But cold and antiviral drugs, he says, are not really showing good results now. “However, the situation may change with the onset of cold weather,” he does not exclude.

The Rigla network notes that sales of drugs from the covid list, expensive medical cosmetics, and some dietary supplements are declining in physical terms. Most categories of medicines are growing in money terms, but the figures in packages remain stable and show a slight positive trend compared to last year, the company adds.

Sales of the 20 largest pharmacy chains for the first nine months of the year, according to DSM Group estimates, increased by 21%. The most pronounced dynamics was shown by the Aprel chain (it occupies 6.4% in the commercial segment), whose sales grew by 52.3%, to 80.8 billion rubles, E-apteka (an increase of 83.1% , up to 19.6 billion rubles) and Aloe (by 51%, up to 12 billion rubles).

Rigla, whose sales grew by 19.5% in nine months, to 95.9 billion rubles, remains the leader in pharmaceutical retail in terms of share – 7.6%. But some of the largest players showed negative dynamics. Thus, the turnover of the combined networks Erkapharm and Melodiya Zdorovya (4.7%) decreased by 8.4% over the nine months, to 58.4 billion rubles. The company did not answer Kommersant’s questions. Sergei Shulyak explains that the decline in Erkapharm’s turnover may be due to business optimization, the closure of unprofitable pharmacies.

The negative dynamics in the fourth quarter will lead to a slowdown in the growth of the pharmacy market by the end of the year to 16–17%, DSM Group predicts. Nikolai Bespalov also assumes that this year for the pharmacy market will end with double-digit growth only due to good results in the first half of the year. But the next one, according to his forecasts, may turn out to be difficult for the market due to a decrease in the purchasing power of the population. This, according to the expert, will push the population towards a savings model of behavior, which can be expressed in the transition to domestically produced drugs, the refusal to take the usual vitamin and mineral complexes.

Alexandra Mertsalova