Russian drugmakers plan to produce copies of expensive imported drugs

Leading Russian pharmaceutical producers plan to significantly increase their share in the domestic market of high-priced drugs, which will be through the setting up of production of analogues of some expensive imported drugs, reports The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent.

At present, the share of the segment of expensive drugs, priced at 500 roubles ($9.63) and higher in the Russian market, is estimated at 27%, which is equivalent to 182 billion roubles ($3.5 billion).

Until the beginning of 2015 the segment was mostly comprised of imported drugs, however, due to devaluation of the Russian currency their imports have significantly declined, and were partially replaced by the domestic production.