The Pharmaceutical Market: Ukraine

Ukraine is the second-largest republic of the former Soviet Union. with a population of 46 million, it is also one of the larger countries in Europe as a whole. for this reason, Ukraine represents a potentially major and lucrative pharmaceutical market. in practice, this is not the case. Most domestic manufacturers are very small and focus on the production of older drugs. A number of pharmaceutical manufacturers have managed to obtain GMP certificates, but realistically they can only compete with Western imports in terms of price.

around 72% of the pharmaceutical market is supplied by imports. Germany and India were the leading suppliers in 2006, accounting for over 30% of imports. Foreign companies dominate the market in value terms.

Although an amendment to the Law on Medicines in 2006 provided protection against unfair commercial use of pharmaceutical data submitted in the marketing approval process, serious problems remain with regard to the enforcement of intellectual property rights. by law, the State Pharmacological Centre cannot refuse to issue marketing authorisation on the grounds of patent violation and the judicial system lacks experience in dealing with IP violations. despite this, the US government lowered Ukraine to its standard Watch List in 2008.