Medicines prices rapidly growing in Kazakhstan

Virtis consulting group presented a survey that revealed that medicines are getting more expensive in Kazakhstan, Express K writes. In 2008 Kazakhstan residents spent $793 million on 491 million packs of the medicines and $962 million on 393 million packs in 2011. Kazakhstan-made medicines do not affect the prices, as they circulate mainly at the hospital market. They hold 53 percent of the market in terms of quantity and 12.8% percent of the market in therms of cost. The share of Kazakhstan-made medicines at the retail market makes less than 25 percent in quantity and 7.2 percent in cost. Original medicines (produced by top pharmaceutical brands) are getting expensive twice as fast as the generics do. (Generic drugs are a cheaper version of original medicines but their action is identical as they contain the same active ingredients as the original formulation.) A pack of the original medicine cost around 2 Euro in 2003 and 6.28 in 2011. The prices for generics jumped in the same period from 80 Eurocents to 1.23 Euro. The share of original medicines makes one half of the market in terms of cost and 10.9 percent in terms of quantity.