Sales of their Russian counterparts Ozempic and Saxenda multiplied by eight in 2024

The total cost of drugs sold, according to RNC Pharma estimates, amounted to 11.5 billion rubles in retail prices, including VAT, 4.1 times more than in 2023. We are talking about drugs based on analogues of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1, presented in Russian retail trade under the names semaglutide, liraglutide, dulaglutide and exenatide).

According to Bespalov, the main volume of the market is represented by semaglutide drugs (direct analogues of Ozempic). In monetary terms, these drugs were sold for 9.9 billion rubles and occupy 86% of the market. The leaders in sales were “Semavik” from the pharmaceutical company “Geropharm” (55% of the market volume in money) and “Quincenta” from “Promomed” (22.7%). Both products will hit the market at the end of 2023.

The second most popular are drugs with the active ingredient liraglutide (analogs of Saxenda. They were sold for 1.48 billion rubles in 2024. Among these weight loss drugs, the leader is Enligria from Promomed (occupies 10.4 % of the total market for LPG analogues- 1).

The original Ozempic is still sold in Russia. According to Bespalov’s estimates, “several tens of thousands of packages” will be sold in 2024. They may be remnants of previously supplied medications or products of “gray” origin, which also reach pharmacies, but are mainly sold online, noted the director of RNC Pharma.

It is impossible to establish the exact number of packages sold, Bespalov added, but noted that with the arrival of analogues of Geropharm and Promomed, Ozempic’s gray market share in Russia “began to decline rapidly.”

Until 2023, Ozempic from the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk was the only drug with the active ingredient semaglutide presented on the Russian market. However, already in October 2024, domestic analogues of Ozempic surpassed the original in sales in Russia, RBC wrote with reference to data from the DSM Group.

Co-chairman of the All-Russian Union of Patients Yan Vlasov explained to the publication that Ozempic is widely advertised around the world, but the Russian analogues that have appeared now are much cheaper than the original drug, which explains the increasing consumer interest. Vlasov added that patients use semaglutide-based medications without a prescription to lose weight.