Uzbekistan. Pharmaceutical market overview

More than 130 companies are active in Uzbekistan's pharmaceutical industry today, supplying more than a third of all medical drugs to the market, compared to the beginning of the 90s when there were only 3 such companies.

The industry in Uzbekistan has many companies and even whole sectors that have been created from the ground up. The national pharmaceutical industry occupies a special place in this list – it has managed to arrange production of a wide range of medical products in the country over a short time and to supply the internal market with affordable high quality medicines.

Twenty years is a long time for creating an enterprise or a business of your own. However, this time is very short if you are creating an industry with a diversified transport, communication and utility infrastructure that has been developed through the use of logistics. Over the years of independence, the new Republic had to create a pharmaceutical industry practically from zero, as well as creating a foundation for developing highly qualified human resources.

A policy for reducing the share of the state in the economy and the privatization of state property has been active in Uzbekistan since the first years of independence. These processes are primarily aimed at creating a competitive environment for small businesses and private entrepreneurs, and creating companies that produce products for export. One of the methods for achieving these targets is attracting experience, investment and technologies from abroad, which helps establish production of new products and becomes the foundation for developing domestic production capacities. This was the basis for the creation of Uzbekistan's pharmaceutical industry.

Over the years, more than $300 million has been attracted for the development of the industry, over $100 million of which is foreign investment. As a result of the implementation of these measures, the volume of medical drug production increased from 46.9 million som to 265.7 billion som. The industries produce 1,327 medical drugs in 90 pharmaceutical groups and 30 pharmaceutical forms, as well as 145 different medical products.

There are active efforts to increase exports. 250 medicines from 15 national enterprises are registered in twelve countries, while the products themselves are exported to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, India, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, China, Russia and other countries. Special attention is paid to ensuring that national products are competitive. Work on introducing international quality standards is being carried out. Today, the ISO-9001 quality control system has been implemented in 28 national enterprises and the international GMP standard has been applied in 5.

An important part of domestic pharmaceutical production strategy is the development of the country's own medicines with the maximum use of local plant, natural, mineral and synthetic raw materials. For this reason, the industry has established close relations with the Academy of Science and related institutes. According to experts, the volume of production in the industry at the end of the year grew by approximately 25 percent and will reach nearly 300 billion som. This has resulted in the share of domestic products in the total volume of consumption on the internal market exceeding 40 percent. Export has also increased twice over. This was achieved through the efforts of local pharmaceutical producers that have invested in modernization and new technology.

Source: ITE-Uzbekistan