Translated material
Abstinence program
In the first half of 2007, Russian beneficiaries received 40% less medicines
After a series of shocks in the Russian pharmaceutical market, which erupted at the end of last year due to difficulties in implementing the federal program for preferential drug provision, the situation has noticeably stabilized. This happened thanks to a set of administrative measures and a reduction in funding for the federal program of additional drug provision (DLO). According to the results of the first half of 2007 - yesterday this data was the first to be published by the analytical group RMBC "Remedium" - the DLO segment decreased by 40%. Experts note that in the first six months of last year, 36.4 billion rubles worth of medicines were shipped under the benefit. ($1.332 billion), and for the same period of this year - by only 21.7 billion rubles. ($831 million).The reduction in government spending on free medicines for citizens with benefits, of course, led to the fact that they received fewer medicines: local health authorities began to closely monitor how many boxes and bottles were prescribed “to one person.” Numerous circulars from the center ordered them to “prevent abuses on the ground.” After all, it is known that last year, local therapists did not restrict their patients in anything, often writing out free prescriptions immediately for entire entrances and even houses. RMBC has information that doctors have received verbal instructions regarding the maximum cost of one prescription - now it cannot exceed 300-360 rubles. (depending on the region).
As a result, in the first half of 2007, the consumption of free medicines, in terms of the number of packages prescribed, fell by more than half compared to the same period last year. Pharmacies received only 57 million packages of medicines under the benefit. But, paradoxically, the average cost of packaging a finished medicinal product in DLO has increased noticeably. The reason is a sharp increase in the share of expensive drugs in the program. Over the year, this figure increased from 10.4 to 14.5 dollars. It is worth noting that in the commercial market, where citizens are forced to pay out of their own wallets, the consumption of expensive drugs is much less. The average cost of a package of a finished drug in the first half of this year in free sale was $2.16. RMBC analysts are confident that this is another confirmation of the well-known fact: only those citizens who need serious drug therapy remain in the DLO program. All others chose to leave the program and receive cash benefits.
Medicine provision at the expense of the state, as in previous years of the existence of the DLO program, is carried out extremely unevenly in different regions, which affects the availability, including expensive ones, of drugs in different parts of the country. For example, research centers are concentrated in St. Petersburg, which traditionally do a good job of diagnosing rare pathologies such as hemophilia and cystic fibrosis. Therefore, there are many times more beneficiaries with such diagnoses there than in other regions. All of them are forced to take expensive drugs for life, which increases the average cost of a package of finished medicine in the DLO program in this region to $44.5. At the same time, in Moscow it is $10, and in the Moscow region - $12.8.
This state of affairs continues to attract the largest Western pharmaceutical manufacturers to the federal program, supplying expensive original drugs to Russian beneficiaries, which account for 60% of total sales in this segment. Their specialization is antitumor drugs, drugs for the treatment of diabetes mellitus, hemostatic agents, immunomodulators, hematopoiesis stimulants, and psychotropic drugs. Due to numerous changes in the list of drugs sold under DLO, the sales leaders in this segment have also changed. Thus, this year Sanofi-Aventis sold to the Russian state 68% less of its products (in ruble equivalent) than in the same period last year. And she “fell out” of the program leaders. And Novartis (11.5% DLO) and Janssen-Cilag AG (9.6% DLO) supplanted last year's champion F.Hoffmann-La Roche (8.7% DLO).