Analysis of pharmaceutical market development in Azerbaijan as an important object of foreign trade activities of domestic pharmaceutical enterprises

Abstract

For domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers pharmaceutical markets of the former USSR countries are traditionally considered as important objects of their foreign economic activity. With the aim of forming a consistent and scientifically based assortment policy with regard to its foreign economic partners, domestic producers of pharmaceutical products need to have prompt and objective information about the changes that have occurred in the national pharmaceutical markets of other countries. The pharmaceutical market is a complex and multi-level structure. Against the backdrop of a sharp decline in the activity of foreign trade relations between Ukrainian producers of pharmaceutical products and the Russian Federation, the growth of export volumes of medicines to other countries of the former USSR, for example, the countries of the Transcaucasia, is increasingly expanding. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the current state and problems of the development of the pharmaceutical market of Azerbaijan. Aim. To analyze the current state of development and to determine the main characteristics of the Azerbaijani pharmaceutical market. Results. It was established that during 2010-2016 Azerbaijan was one of the five leading countries in terms of imports of Ukrainian pharmaceuticals. Registration of medicines in Azerbaijan will be carried out according to the centralized procedure, and the registration period is 5 years. The pharmaceutical market of Azerbaijan is promotional and is import-dependent (95.5-97.0 %), which has unpredictable socio-economic consequences in conditions of financial instability. More than half of imports of pharmaceuticals are in value in the EU countries, while the second and third positions are represented by Russian Federation and Ukraine (14.0 % and 9.0 % respectively). Implementation in Azerbaijan from September 2015 of the mechanisms of state regulation of drug prices had a significant impact on the formation of assortment policy in the pharmaceutical market. The established fact of a planned increase in the number of drugs that are subject to state regulation of prices from 2015 to 4.3 times (from 2500 to 10,731 titles). An important characteristic of the development of the Azerbaijani pharmaceutical market during 2010-2016 is the stable dominance in the structure of the assortment of generic drugs (64,59-73,77 %) and prescription drugs (68,32-75,27 %). Conclusions. The results of the research can be used to develop effective approaches in building long-term and mutually beneficial foreign economic relations between Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers and subjects of Azerbaijan.