The pharmaceutical market is actively preparing for a drop in demand at the moment. At best, the retail dynamics will hardly go beyond stagnation by the end of the year, even though March turned out to be busy. With the stocks replenished during the hype being used now, the consumption curve is already noticeably lower than it usually is at this time of year.

While 61% of Russian doctors question the official COVID-19 death rate in Russia, they do not have evidence of the statistics being manipulated, according to an online survey by the RNC Pharma analyst company and the Doktor Na Rabote (Doctor at Work) social media service for doctors. Obviously, this reflects both a general distrust of the statistical service in the healthcare system, and purely methodological issues, such as a large number of people who did not experience any symptoms, the quality of the tests and collection of biological materials, etc.

Between January and April 2020, Russia manufactured 150 bln RUB worth of pharmaceutical drugs (manufacturers’ dispatch prices, VAT included), which is in monetary terms (rubles) 17.7% higher than in 2019. The dynamics in physical terms (units) are +6.6%, thanks to the high activity in March and April.

52% of doctors say that access to medical care has worsened after the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic, because anything not related to COVID-19 now works on the residual principle, according to an online survey by the RNC Pharma analyst company and the Doktor Na Rabote (Doctor at Work) social media service for doctors. Another 40% believe that the situation is close to critical, because doctors are overloaded, and many healthcare facilities are being re-profiled, while the retired capacities are not compensated in any way. It is mostly the doctors from Moscow and St. Petersburg who consider the situation critical. This correlates with the morbidity statistics, at the time of the survey Moscow accounted for more than 50% of all COVID-19 cases.

It is unlikely that the Russian pharmaceutical market players that launched various anti-crisis programs a couple of years ago could have guessed that early 2020 would shock them with the coronavirus, rush demand and desperate regulatory activity. While they could feel a crisis approaching, they were still preparing for something else.