Nearly five years into the full-scale war in Ukraine and the proclaimed course toward import substitution, the Russian pharmaceutical market has failed to lose its structural dependence on foreign manufacturers. According to Bloomberg estimates based on data from the DSM research group, in the first eight months of 2026, Russia spent almost 700 billion rubles—about $8.6 billion—on medicines. Approximately 56% of this amount went toward imported drugs. For comparison, in 2022, the share of imported medicines in total expenditures was 57%. Thus, after more than four years of military action and systemic restrictions, trade with the West in the pharmaceutical sector has remained virtually unchanged.
Western Corporations Remain the Main Players
The situation remains particularly complex regarding the production of specialized drugs that Russian companies are not yet capable of fully reproducing. Almost all critically important pharmaceutical imports come from countries that the Kremlin officially classifies as "unfriendly." Based on the results of the first three quarters of 2026, the top ten players in the Russian pharmaceutical market were predominantly Western corporations: among the top ten companies, only three turned out to be Russian. At the same time, pharmaceutical products and basic medical devices have largely avoided Western sanctions for humanitarian reasons, making medicine trade one of the few areas where economic ties with the West have not been severed.
The European Union Increased Supplies Despite General Trade Decline
Eurostat data confirms this trend at the macro level. Between January and July 2026, total exports of goods from the EU to Russia dropped by almost half compared to the same period in 2022. At the same time, supplies of pharmaceutical products from the European Union to Russia, conversely, increased by nearly a third—to 6.7 billion euros. Pharmaceuticals have thus become one of the few commodity segments where trade volumes have not only been preserved but have also increased amid general sanctions pressure.
The 80% Domestic Production Plan: Goal Not Achieved
At the end of 2025, Vladimir Putin approved a healthcare development plan according to which 80% of essential medicines—which account for the bulk of public procurement—must be produced within Russia. This goal has not yet been achieved. The main problem lies in expensive specialized drugs for treating oncological, autoimmune, and rare diseases, where Russian manufacturers have neither the technological base nor the accumulated development experience. Russian companies have learned to produce analogues of several popular foreign medicines: in particular, alternatives have been developed to Ozempic by Denmark's Novo Nordisk (diabetes treatment and weight loss) and Xarelto by Germany's Bayer (prevention of blood clots). However, overall, increased domestic production does not mean the creation of a full-fledged pharmaceutical industry: for the most part, Russian enterprises are copying existing drugs rather than developing new innovative medicines.
Volume Growth Without a Technological Breakthrough
According to Bloomberg, in the first eight months of 2026, pharmaceutical production volumes in Russia were approximately 71% higher than in the same period of 2021. This indicates quantitative growth in domestic output, but a qualitative shift—moving from copying to independent development—has never occurred. Russia continues to spend billions of dollars on foreign medicines, and the plans for pharmaceutical import substitution proclaimed in the very first months of the war remain unrealized. As practice shows, a similar picture is characteristic not only of the pharmaceutical sector: in Russia's aviation industry, import substitution has also faced serious difficulties, forcing authorities to "reanimate" outdated equipment models due to the impossibility of quickly replacing imported components.
