Between January and March 2021, the total volume of the online sales or reservation of pharmacy products (pharmaceutical drugs and parapharmaceuticals) in Russia amounted to 46.2 million rubles (end-user prices, VAT included), 24% up from the first quarter of 2020, which is, considering the drop in the total volume of the Russian pharmaceutical and parapharmaceutical market, is a real success. However, it should be noted that it was parapharmaceuticals that contributed the most. The growth rate of the online sales and reservation of pharmaceutical drugs was +13.4%, and while this is a lot, it is still 6.7% down from 2020. Besides, the laws prohibiting the online sale of Rx drugs is an objective obstacle.

Another wave of consolidation processes was the highlight of May 2021 for the so-called “big” Russian retail. May saw three major transactions at once: Magnit is purchasing Dixy, Lenta is acquiring Billa, and finally a large association will be formed for by consolidating certain aspects of the activities of three regional retailers in Siberia and the Far East – Krasny Yar, Samberi and Slata.

The veterinary market in Russia kept stagnating between January and April 2021. The growth rate is only +1.7% in monetary terms, with the sales volume of 6.93 billion rubles (retail prices, VAT included). In fact, the growth rate was positive mostly due to inflation, while the sales in physical terms kept decreasing. The sales volume in physical terms amounted to 53.9 million minimum dosage units (MDU), down 8.5% from January–April 2020.

A reduction in market volumes was the highlight of early 2021 for the pharmaceutical industry. However, only retail has been on the decline so far. All the segments in the public sector has been showing double-digit growth rates, which helped the growth rates of the market on the whole, but the positive growth rates are only nominal, due to the inflation rate in the first quarter of 2021 being thrice as high as the growth rate.

In 2020, Russia imported 15.32 billion rubles worth of veterinary vaccines (customs clearance included) from foreign countries except the EEU member states, down 9.4% in monetary terms (rubles) from 2019, because the importers were using up their stocks made in late 2019. The import volume in physical terms amounted to 7.15 million units, or around 43.4 billion dosages. The growth rates are -23.3% in units and -23.1% in dosages.

Russia imported 0.09 billion rubles worth of veterinary vaccines and serums from the EEU countries in 2020 (wholesale prices, VAT excluded). However, most of the products were not manufactured by the EEU member states. Manufacturers from Belarus and Kazakhstan together accounted for only 0.8% of the total import volume, and Armenia and Kyrgyzstan did not ship veterinary vaccines to Russia in 2020 at all.