Medicines in Increasingly Short Supply in Russia Not Because of Sanctions but Because of Problems in Production and Marketing, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 16 – Medicines and medical components do not fall under Western sanctions, but problems in this Russian branch arise in a few cases because of dual use concerns and in many more because of problems involved in the actual import of such materials because of Western restrictions on shipping.

            But the fundamental problems in the medicine branch in Russia are mostly homegrown, Moscow specialists in the medical sector say, the result of failures to plan for alternative sources of supply or the training of new workers for this sector, bottlenecks in shipping, and the absence of a single bureaucratic hierarchy making decisions for this branch.

            Those problems were less serious when Moscow could rely on Western sources, but now they have been thrown in high relief because Russian firms have been unable to easily find alternative sources or engage in import substitution (profile.ru/scitech/pochemu-v-rossii-poka-ne-udalos-naladit-proizvodstvo-lekarstv-i-medizdelij-1278327/).

            According to industry experts Marina Yurshina of Profile interviewed, Russia can solve all these problems in four or five years; but in the interim, there are going to be increasing shortages; and these will have an ever greater negative impact on the health and even lives of Russians who need them.