Since the beginning of the war, the Affordable Medicines reimbursement program has included about 80 pharmacy chains, said Natalia Husak, head of the National Health Service of Ukraine (NSZU).
“It has become very valuable for us that pharmacies have expressed a desire to enter the reimbursement program during the war. Since March, we have concluded agreements with another 80 pharmacy chains, which means that 461 new pharmacies and pharmacy points have been added, where patients can get affordable medicine and insulin,” she said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Gusak said that currently 1,361 pharmacies are participating in the program, which in total have a network of more than 12.5 thousand holiday places throughout the country.
Top ten largest pharmacy chains will consolidate up to 70% of the medicine market in the coming years, Director General of Teva Ukraine pharmaceutical company Dmytro Spitsyn has said. “The pharmacy channel is quickly and aggressively consolidating. Now the 10 largest chains occupy about 55% of the market. I think that in a few years this share will grow to 70%. Crises accelerate the absorption process,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Spitsyn also predicted that the lockdown crisis caused by COVID-19 in the pharmaceutical market “will accelerate the mergers and acquisitions that have been going on before and accelerate the processes of concentration and consolidation in the distribution channel.”
“This is also quite expected, because who was rich, he became richer during the crisis. Large companies will continue the process of acquisitions,” he said.
According to Spitsyn, at present, “the distribution market is already quite consolidated enough, because three companies occupy 90% of the market, including almost 80% of the market occupied by two companies.”
According to SMD, the Teva pharmaceutical company, according to the results of 2019, occupies the eighth position in the retail segment of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market. Its share was 2.7% in monetary terms.
