Sales of antidepressants have increased again in Russia

According to them, for the entire year 2023, Russians bought only 15.3 million packages of depression medications, and in the peak year of 2022, 13 million packages.

In monetary terms, sales of antidepressants in January-November last year increased by 31.9%, up to 13.5 billion rubles. This is due to the increase in drug prices. According to Rosstat, their prices increased by 11%, while general inflation was 9.5%.

“Patients suffering from depressive states began to use “traditional medicine” less and visited the doctor more frequently,” explained Nikolai Bespalov, development director of RNC Pharma.

Due to increased demand, pharmacies are experiencing a shortage of the most popular drugs, writes Kommersant. A correspondent of the publication, who visited several pharmacies in Moscow, discovered that since the beginning of 2025, the sertraline-based antidepressant Zoloft from the manufacturer Pfizer has disappeared from the shelves.

The drug ranks third in sales among antidepressants after amitriptyline and fluoxetine. According to DSM Group, in January-November 2024, 1.7 million packages of Zoloft were sold for 752.2 million rubles, 302% and 334% more than last year.

In October, RBC, citing data from the websites of the country’s largest pharmacies, wrote that in some regions of Russia there was almost no such thing as the most popular analogue of Ozempic for the treatment of diabetes and weight loss – Semavik from Geropharm . The shortage of the drug is due to increased demand, Geropharm said.