Moscow Kremlin by Pavel Kazachkov with CC

The two largest states of the for­mer Soviet Union have under­gone devel­op­ments similar to Turkey’s, and they are cur­rently ranked as the largest phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal mar­kets in the CIS region. With annual growth rates ranging from 14–20%, Rus­sia and Ukraine are moving in the right direc­tion.

The Russ­ian phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal mar­ket is the eighth largest in the world by total turnover, and it ranks third in terms of growth rate. Caused by a greatly increased demand for inno­v­a­tive and high-quality health­care prod­ucts, mar­ket growth is pre­dicted to dou­ble in the CIS region in the next five to six years. To date, Rus­sia has invested sev­eral hun­dred mil­lion euros in reforming its health­care sys­tem. Within just a few years, the annual flow is esti­mated to increase by as much as 15% annu­ally.

In 2010, Rus­sia imported med­i­cine and med­ical prod­ucts with a total value of €6.2 bil­lion. Despite the government’s desire to increase pro­duc­tiv­ity within the domes­tic Pharma market, there is still the assump­tion that new and inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts will con­tinue to be imported in bulk quan­ti­ties. Russia’s recent col­lab­o­ra­tion with the WTO has also opened up new pos­si­bil­i­ties for for­eign com­pa­nies. The new cus­toms union between Rus­sia, Kaza­khstan and Belarus will increase trade, as well as remov­e bureau­cratic hur­dles for west­ern com­pa­nies.