Evalar (Russia’s third biggest pharma manufacturer in terms of turnover) has introduced more than 100 products to the market to replace the imported assortment. 89 SKUs are dietary supplements and 22 SKUs are medicines. By the end of February 2022, the share of import-substituting drugs in the total turnover of the company amounted to 38%. This was reported in the company’s press service.
According to Natalia Prokopyeva, the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of ZAO Evalar, today’s consumer behavior is determined by a number of factors.
“These are logistics difficulties, restrictions on the operation of foreign platforms, or a multi-fold increase in the price of imported dietary supplements and medicines due to the exchange rate; all this suggests a change in consumer behavior now and in the future. We have presented a special product matrix, the main advantage of which is an affordable price compared to imported analogues. A couple of days ago we sent this matrix to our pharmacy partners. These products, both the dietary supplements and the medications, are complete analogues of the imported drugs . At the moment, the price difference between our products and imported ones can reach up to 60%,” Prokopyeva said.
According to the company representatives, Evalar is consistently increasing its portfolio of import-substituting medicines. The most dramatic changes in weeks 9-10 of 2022 were observed in this category among the high-demand brands in the company’s drug portfolio for the following products: Ginkoum angioprotective agent (+148%), Melatonin sleep aid supplement (+336%), Nephrosten, a broad-range urological therapy (+60%), Qi Clim anti-climacteric agent (+132%), and Mizol antifungal agent (+64%).
“If we talk about the trends in demand for product categories, the “post-COVID” trend in February was replaced in March by “anti-stress” one. The multiple headwinds in the socio-political agenda contributed to the growth of demand for the anti-stress portfolio: we notice sales increase of products such as Glycine, Pustyrnik Forte, Melatonin, Magnesium, and others. In the second and third weeks of March, we see an increase in consumer demand for dietary supplements in the premium price segment, including collagen, coenzyme, and curcumin,” added Evalar’s Chairperson of the Board.
She also stressed that Evalar meets its obligations to its partners to the fullest extent and is more active in product promotion.
“Our inventory is sufficient to meet the current demand. At the same time, in April, we not only avoided any decrease of our advertising budgets, but also made a decision to increase advertising investments in the most dynamically growing brands with high consumer demand. We also consistently fulfill our obligations to produce own labels for our pharmacy partners. Today, Evalar is perhaps the only production site that has preserved global level quality standards and international certification for its dietary supplements,” the company’s press service quotes Natalia Prokopyeva as saying.
As part of preventive measures, Evalar has increased the production of plant extracts to date for more than 30 plant components. In addition, according to the company representatives, Evalar has launched a system of refining synthetic pharmaceutical substances to pharmaceutical quality.
As it became known earlier, Evalar was recognized as the leader in dietary supplements sales among companies in Eastern Europe, Russia, and the CIS.
The head of the Evalar company was listed among the richest women in Russia.
