Pharmacy tricks

Antimonopoly officers will check suppliers and sellers of medicines

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has undertaken to identify all the “dark” places in the Russian pharmaceutical business by September 1. That is, those where there are large profits and virtually no state presence. As follows from a recent speech by Timofey Nizhegorodtsev, head of the FAS social sector control department, violations of antimonopoly legislation will be looked for in many directions at once - from wholesale distributors to retail chains.

The first link that attracted increased attention from the antimonopoly department was the market for innovative foreign-made medicines. The state purchases these drugs to provide patients with seven nosologies: myeloid leukemia, fermentopathy, pituitary dwarfism, hemophilia, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, conditions after organ transplantation. Most of these drugs are protected by patents and have no alternative not only in the domestic market, but also in the global market. Nevertheless, the FAS intends, with the help of the Federal State Institution “Scientific Center for Expertise of Medical Products of Roszdravnadzor”, controlled by Roszdravnadzor, to establish the interchangeability of drugs in this group and to identify cases of unjustified purchase of expensive drugs. Officials of the antimonopoly department will try to identify companies whose certain medicines are out of competition, and regardless of the reasons, they will add them to the register of business entities that have a market share of a certain product of more than 35%.

The second step will be to work with domestic market participants - distributors and large pharmacy chains. According to analysts, now in Russia the five largest drug suppliers occupy 85% of the entire wholesale market. “It will be very difficult to influence changes in the balance in the distribution segment,” David Melik-Guseinov, marketing director at Pharmexpert, told Vremya Novostei. - Our market is developing approximately according to the same laws as the Western one. Just look at the fact that in the UK there are only three or four distributors, and in Germany there are no more than five or six.” But this situation does not seem normal to FAS employees. They have already sent requests to 17 companies, Roszdravnadzor and customs authorities. “The result of the work should be to clarify the companies’ share. If they occupy more than 10% of the market, we will add them to the register of those occupying a dominant position,” explained Timofey Nizhegorodtsev. He also noted that the current concentration in the distribution segment could have been caused not so much by natural market processes as by “tricks” in forming margins. “Often, the margin is not determined through a transparent mechanism; a number of companies use a very complex payment scheme for counter services. This scheme can provoke discrimination in the market, provides great opportunities to play on the amount of profit, to regulate the access of goods to individual distributors,” says Mr. Nizhegorodtsev .

But, according to antimonopoly experts, pharmacy chains behave worst of all. Well-known brands are actively absorbing regional pharmacies. As a result, it turns out that on one street there are two or three commercial pharmacies and not a single municipal or state one. The difference is felt primarily by beneficiaries, since commercial pharmacies do not work with them. “We believe that if you occupy a dominant position in the market, you must bear the burden of participating in government programs, including DLO. If the chain occupies more than 35%, we will issue it an order so that the company has one or a number of pharmacies participating in state programs,” says the FAS.

“It is possible to fight a monopoly on the drug market, but only locally,” David Melik-Guseinov told Vremya Novostei. “In terms of the size of the country, even such a giant as “36.6” occupies 6-7% of the market.” The most interesting thing, according to experts, is that even if individual regions are taken into account, it will very quickly become clear that state unitary enterprises are monopolists. “Very often it is the state networks, taking advantage of the lack of competition, that inflate the prices of medicines not only for commercial buyers, but also for benefit recipients,” the expert believes.

Galina PAPERNAYA