Assessment of the coronavirus epidemic impact on the Russian pharmaceutical enterprises’ economic performance

In the context of the COVID-19 virus global pandemic the Russian healthcare system faced important challenges. On the one hand, it is required to provide the population with all the necessary medicines, and, on the other, to support domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers in conditions when foreign manufacturers occupy a priority position in the market in value terms. Thereby hospitals and other medical and preventive institutions sharply increased procurement by tenders from Russian manufacturers since, as a rule, those infected with coronavirus were sent to hospitals. The sharp increase in morbidity and the “waves” of the pandemic created an additional burden on both the hospital system and the medicines manufacturers’ capacity, as a result of which medicines sales increased significantly, and with them, the companies’ revenue and profits.
The article gives a general description of the Russian pharmaceutical market in 2020 and 2021, emphasizing its attractiveness to manufacturers, high competition level and growth prospects. Using the example of the 20 largest Russian pharmaceutical companies it shows the revenue and profit dynamics in 2020 compared to 2019.
It was also noted that the demand and, as a result, sales of “anti-covid” medicines changed over 2020 and the 1st half of 2021 along a trajectory similar to the trajectory of the number of people infected with “waves” in May and October 2020, and then by July 2021. Therefore, it was hypothesized that there would be a correlation between the cases’ number and medicines’ sales of certain therapeutic groups. By “anti-covid” drugs are meant antibacterial, antiviral drugs and immunostimulants. Hence it is possible to build a regression model with the help of which to predict the change in medicines’ sales depending on the epidemiological situation.
According to the results of the study, it was revealed that about 50% of sales changes are explained by the morbidity dynamics in Russia. The remaining 50% of the changes can be explained by the fact that the considered therapeutic groups of medicines are used to treat not only the COVID-19 virus, but also other respiratory diseases. The author draws conclusions about the main trends of the new era in the pharmaceutical industry.

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