Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, forecasts that the hepatitis C virus drug market in Russia will grow nine percent annually over the 2008 - 2013 study period, reaching $327 million by 2013. This growth will be driven mainly by increased government spending on healthcare and increased use of more-expensive therapies like pegylated interferons [peg-IFNs] (i.e., Roche's Pegasys and Schering-Plough's PegIntron) instead of conventional interferons (i.e., Roche's Roferon and Schering-Plough's Intron A).
As Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita continues to grow, both government and private healthcare spending is expected to increase as well. In 2007, the International Monetary Fund reported government spending on healthcare was only about 3.5 percent of Russia's GDP, but the World Bank and other sources expect this number to increase to 5.5 percent of Russia's GDP by 2013.
The new Emerging Markets report entitled Hepatitis C Virus in Russia also finds that Pegasys and PegIntron will benefit from market growth in Russia. Sales of these two agents will account for 77 percent of the total hepatitis C virus drug market in 2013, an increase from 68 percent in 2008.
"In Russia, Pegasys and PegIntron currently capture a relatively small patient share but have growth potential because physicians and patients perceive them to be more effective and safer than conventional interferons," stated Alexandra Makarova, M.D., Ph.D., analyst at Decision Resources.
The new report is part of an expansion of the Emerging Markets report series to cover Russia. The series contains primary research of physicians and epidemiology study in key pharmaceutical markets of Russia -- Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Novosibirsk.
Persistent COVID-19 could drive virus evolution, new study suggests