The head of the Board of Directors of Darnytsia Group, Dmytro Shymkiv, is convinced that the robust pharmaceutical industry fosters the country’s economic growth and reinforces the state’s security. To confirm his words, he cited some official data. Due to them, the pharmaceutical industry’s contribution to the Ukrainian economy is approximately up to 0.8% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). This percentage increases to 10% when accounting for retail. And in terms of added value, the pharmaceutical industry is the leading figure of economic growth since each employee within the industry creates about $1.2 million.
When it comes to national security, it is worth remembering the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak and the restrictions associated with it. They affected the export of various products and, particularly, pharmaceutical substances from India and China. These countries, considered the largest exporters of medicines, decided to keep products to treat their citizens. But Ukraine continued receiving all the necessary pharmaceutical materials due to the sufficient reserves of Darnytsia and the long-term contracts concluded with it. According to Shymkiv’s summary, there is an obvious conclusion to this situation: the more powerful the national pharmaceuticals are, the safer the state is.
Commenting on the current situation in the domestic pharmaceutical market, Dmytro Shymkiv noted that the 2020 year was challenging. In March, a sharp short-term increase in medicine consumption turned to be the largest already in April and May in the last 20 years. There are considerable reasons that affected the level of the medicine demand: the postponement of planned operations, a decreasing number of visits to doctors, and a significant decrease in citizens’ incomes. However, by the end of 2020 year, the situation had stabilized a little. Against this background, there has been a positive trend in antibiotics, analgesics, antithrombotic, and antiviral medicines sales. Moreover, the share of exports increased significantly. Compared to 2019, the Darnytsia pharmaceutical company in 2020 increased the percentage of its export deliveries by 140%.
The top manager Shymkiv also said that the domestic pharmaceutical industry has huge potential, which was laid earlier. Over the past five years, the industry performance has grown by about 12% annually. But according to analysts, in 2020, the growth was only up to 4-6%. The Darnytsia Group management is almost convinced that they will be capable of achieving pre-covid performance by the end of 2021. Such achievement will be possible due to entering international markets and implementing innovative technologies in medicine production.