Experts predict a sharp rise in medicine prices, in the coming months they may become about a quarter more expensive. The main reason is Russias pharmaceutical market depends almost entirely on imports, and there are only a few full cycle domestic producers.

This year, according to experts’ forecasts, will be marked by a rapid pace of growth in drug prices.
Within just a few months, their cost will increase by a quarter compared with the current level. (If compared with previous years, in 2008 the increase in prices was about 12%, and in 2007 only 3.6%).
Such a sharp jump is due to a whole range of reasons, but the main one can still be singled out: the domestic pharmaceutical sector is almost entirely dependent on imports.
Domestic production of medicines in the post-Soviet period on the territory of the Russian Federation has in fact ceased. There are now only three domestic “full-cycle” pharmaceutical manufacturers that, despite all market realities, have nevertheless mastered their own production of active substances - "Gerafarm", NTFP "Polisan" and "Pharm-sintez", but the share of their products on the market is insignificant.
How will this situation affect the average consumer? The answer is obvious: we will simply stop buying medicines in the volume we are used to. "Because of the price increase, medicine consumption will decrease by 15-20%, - said the chairman of the supervisory board of the non-profit partnership "National Pharmaceutical Inspection" Mikhail Getman. - At the same time, the consumption of even expensive medicines, which the state provides to citizens suffering from rare hereditary diseases under the program of seven high-cost nosologies, will really decrease." The authorities’ obligations to this group of patients are fixed in rubles, while the medicines are all imported and purchased in foreign currency. Therefore, officials from the Ministry of Health and Social Development and the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare and Social Development will have to negotiate with foreign manufacturers for supplies at prices below market levels, Mr. Getman believes, having left the post of adviser to the head of "Roszdravnadzor" several months ago. "As practice shows, foreigners never flatly refuse cooperation and are ready to conduct lengthy negotiations. But with supplies, major difficulties begin right away," the expert says.
The decline in consumer activity will inevitably lead to a reduction in the number of pharmacies, especially chain pharmacies, due to unprofitability,
However, the rise in prices will give real advantages to the very few domestic manufacturers. They have a real chance to push out some foreign competitors by virtue of the price difference and take fundamentally new positions.