(2024). The Resilience of the Ukrainian Pharmaceutical Industry During the 2022-2023 War Years in: Daria Kim (
Market and industry resilience in wartime is poorly understood in the
literature. The Ukrainian pharmaceutical industry is an illustrative case
of resilience during the war, as against a GDP decline of 30% in 2022, in
the first half of 2023 the pharma industry already returned to pre-war
production rates. As the study shows, the shock and panic in the market
lasted only for the first two weeks of the war. The industry’s resilience is
positively affected by the concentration of the full cycle, from drug
development to production, geographically mainly in the Kyiv region,
which is relatively sheltered from bombing. Its resilience is also influenced
by the specialisation of pharmaceutical companies in the production of
generics, which do not require huge investments in development and are
oriented towards the affordability of medicines. Patients are responsible
for more than 85% of the market’s demand, which has made
pharmaceutical companies’ sales insensitive to war-related cuts in
government support for healthcare. The high level of resilience is also
attributed to the relative stability of the market demand for generics
produced in Ukraine, which even increases as the population becomes
poorer, and the expansion of pharmacy activities in safe regions following
population migration. This study is based on recent data from pharmacy
market operators as well as national statistics.
