Abstract
Aim. To analyze the current state of the retail pharmaceutical market and identify the typical trends in the development of pharmacy networks at the regional level in the Kharkiv region.Materials and methods. For the study the data regarding the number of licensed drug retailers from the Licensure Register for compounding medicines (in pharmacy conditions), wholesale and retail sale of medicines in the Kharkiv region, statistical data, and legislative base of retail sale of medicines were used. The general methods of scientific knowledge, such as analysis and synthesis, analogy and comparison; grouping method, graphical and statistical methods were used in the study.Results and discussion. Based on the data of the Licensure Register for compounding medicines (in pharmacy conditions), wholesale and retail sale of medicines in the Kharkiv region the business entities engaged in the retail sales have been analyzed. The analysis of all licensees of drug retail sale in the region as been conducted, and they have been distributed according to the size of pharmacy networks: single, small, medium, big, large and mega networks. It has been found that about a half of the pharmaceutical retailers registered are represented by a single pharmacy network. By the number of retail points (pharmacy or pharmacy point) in the region small and big pharmacy networks dominate. The pharmacy networks, which sizes have structural features of monopoly, have been determined. The typical tendencies for cities and rural areas of the region have been shown. The changes concerning activity in the field of retail sale of medicines have been analyzed.Conclusions. The analysis of the current trends of the development of pharmacy networks in the Kharkiv region has shown an ambiguous situation. On the one hand, the official data of the Register of places of wholesale and retail sale of medicines has indicated a fairly healthy competition at the retail pharmaceutical market of the region since only one pharmacy network has been registered among pharmacy mega-networks (which have more than 50 points of sales). On the other hand, in the region there are structural features of the monopoly of several pharmacy networks registered as different business entities, and have about 20-25 points of sales, however, in fact, they operate as a pharmacy mega-network with a number of retail points of sales of about 100. This situation is threatening in terms of monopolization and requires a significant legislative regulation.
Highlights
The pharmaceutical market is an important part of the pharmaceutical supply system in the country
The official data of the Register of places of wholesale and retail sale of medicines has indicated a fairly healthy competition at the retail pharmaceutical market of the region since only one pharmacy network has been registered among pharmacy mega-networks
In the region there are structural features of the monopoly of several pharmacy networks registered as different business entities, and have about 20-25 points of sales, they operate as a pharmacy mega-network with a number of retail points of sales of about 100
Summary
The pharmaceutical market is an important part of the pharmaceutical supply system in the country. In modern conditions, it performs many functions; among them one of the most important functions is social. All changes taking place in the economy of the country and the health sector have a significant impact on the retail segment of the market. One of the most important trends inherent to the domestic pharmaceutical market is development of processes of consolidation and concentration of pharmaceutical companies. Consolidation of pharmaceutical retail sales means that network pharmacies are united and absorb each other. Pharmacy networks (PN) are gradually becoming an important “players” at the domestic pharmaceuticals market. Noteworthy is that today the retail pharmaceutical market of Ukraine has features of latent monopolization of PN. A similar situation is threatening from the pharmaceutical safety point of view
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