Russia plans to continue imports of high-priced Western drugs after 2020

The Russian government has officially announced that the share of domestic drugs in the domestic pharmaceutical market will reach 90% in volume terms by 2018, reports The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent.

This is expected to be achieved in the case of successful implementation of Pharma 2020, a state program, aimed at replacing of drug imports in the Russian pharmaceutical market until 2020.

According to an official spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Health, since the launch of the Pharma 2020 program the volume of investments in the Russian pharmaceutical industry has amounted to 120 billion roubles ($1.85 billion), of which 39 billion roubles were allocated from the state sources.

Since 2012 more than a dozen pharmaceutical plants have been put into operation in Russia, with about 30 enterprises being subject to modernization. The most successful pharmaceutical technoparks are currently located in Yaroslavl, Kaluga and Moscow regions. In the Moscow region the share of domestic drugs could reach 70% as soon as 2016.