Chinese and Indian drugmakers fail to replace Western pharma in Russian clinical studies

Drugmakers from China and India have been unable to replace clinical trials on original drugs from Western manufacturers on the Russian market after February, 24 2022, The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent reports.

Currently the number of clinical studies they conduct in Russia is rare and mostly concerns generics. At the same time Russian companies are also actively launching generics into the market. Due to this, the number of trials of new drugs approved by the Russian Ministry of Health in 2023 increased by almost 3% after a decline of 20% in 2022. Meanwhile, the problem with original drugs remains still pressing.

In 2023, the Russian Ministry of Health approved about 600 clinical trials (CTs) of new drugs, which is 2.8% more year-on-year. For comparison, in 2022 there was a decrease of 18.5%. In 2023, the growth was mainly achieved due to a 14% year-on-year increase in the number of trials by Russian companies. Local drugmakers accounted for 78.7% of all trials, up from 45.7% in 2022.