Over 85% of pharmaceutical supplies in Ukraine are controll by two Monopolization of the distribution companies
The Ukrainian pharmaceutical market in 2024 demonstrates contradictory trends
On the one hand! there is significant growth in monetary comparing sales pages with videos and without videos terms – in 9 months of 2024! sales volumes of the “pharmacy basket” reached UAH 139.7 billion! which is 18.3% more compared to the same period last year. On the other hand! in terms of physical terms! the growth is minimal – only 1.5%! and sales of medicines even showed a slight decrease of 0.2%.
Such dynamics indicate serious structural problems in the industry. The main one remains the Monopolization of the monopolization of the distribution segment by two companies! which control over 85% of the supply of medicines. Their dominance leads to artificially inflated prices – the average cost of one package of medicines increased from UAH 153 in 2023 to UAH 178 in the first 10 months of 2024! i.e. 16.3%.
This price increase significantly exces the official inflation rate
Which as of November was 11.2% year-on-year. Accordingly! what you need to know about developing for the internet of things consumers are forced to overpay for medicines due to the lack of real competition in the distribution market. The situation is complicated by the fact that 88% of drug costs in Ukraine are borne directly from patients’ pockets! and only 12% is covered by the state.
At the same time! the retail segment is being consolidated – the TOP-3 leading pharmacy chains control 50% of the market! and the TOP-5 – almost 70%. Such concentration creates favorable conditions for price collusion and restriction of competition.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has proven ineffective in combating monopolization. Although the AMC launched an investigation into possible anticompetitive concerted actions back in 2022! it has not book your list yielded any real results. The recommendations on restoring competition provided in November 2023 remained declarative.