Medicines do not disappear, but temporarily drop out

Thus, during a press conference at DOS, the situation on the Russian pharmaceutical market was described by Pavel Lisovsky, a leading economist and expert, managing partner of the Control Systems Design company, answering a question about the possibility of a drug shortage.

The informational reason for holding this press conference was the recent increase in reports from different regions of the Russian Federation about the lack of certain drugs. Most often, the deficit concerns imported medicines and children’s antibiotics, but some experts also argue that there may be problems with the availability of new drugs for cancer patients.

According to Pavel Lisovsky, indeed, “there is an unpleasant situation associated with the fact that certain medicines fall out for some time”:

“The most sensational situation is associated with the loss of children’s antibiotics, then some of their substitutes; children’s dosage forms of painkillers, paracetamols, nurofen. Some time ago they really disappeared. But the disappearance of certain drugs has different reasons: for example, they can be associated with a violation of production and logistics chains. This applies to children’s antibiotics: their foreign manufacturer was idle in 2020 due to covid restrictions, which is why it did not accumulate the stock of medicines that should have been. Now these enterprises simply do not have the opportunity to produce the volume of drugs that is needed around the world. In addition, when they choose where to supply these drugs in the first place, it is not difficult to guess why they do not choose Russia.”

At the same time, as Pavel Lisovsky recalled, sanctions do not apply to the supply of medicines to the Russian Federation, at least for now, but there are some difficulties in their delivery:

“In addition to all this, it should be borne in mind that at the end of December, many countries of the world celebrated Catholic Christmas, which means that our foreign partners left for the weekend. Then the New Year and Christmas were celebrated with us. And just recently we started to come out of the holidays. But the more complex the supply chain, the more it requires the intervention of the people who organize it. Due to the fact that first their employee rested, then ours, there was some kind of gap in the supply. I think that soon all this will improve, but no one can guarantee that there will be no disappearances of certain drugs in 2023. Rather, it may affect some rarer medicines (the so-called “heavy” medicines), rather than mass ones, since there is less demand for them.”

In part, according to Pavel Lisovsky, drug shortages can give rise to state regulation of prices for VED drugs (vital and essential drugs):

“Such regulation means that all participants in the supply chain can only make a certain mark-up, and now, if the cost of production has become higher for the manufacturer and there is practically no “backlash” for the mark-up for suppliers, they have no commercial interest in increasing the supply of this drug or it here. produce. As a result, some of these medicines are simply removed from registration in the Russian Federation. Vital and essential drugs can be the first to fall under this blow if there is insufficient profitability for all participants in the commodity distribution chain.”

As another participant of the press conference, Executive Director of the Russian Association of Pharmacy Chains Nelli Ignatieva, added, some shortage of foreign medicines is also explained by the fact that the flu is now rapidly spreading not only in Russia:

“Therefore, foreign manufacturers reduce supplies to other countries, based on their national interests. Now, as for children’s dosage forms: parents always strive to buy the best for their child, and for some reason they usually understand foreign drugs as the best. Due to their massive buying up, the picture arises that foreign drugs are not available. But it is not so. They exist, but in smaller numbers.

In addition, according to her, resellers create additional difficulties, who first buy scarce drugs, and then try to resell them through social networks at a premium, which is strictly prohibited.

Sergei Ishkov.

Photo by Moscow agency