72.ru reports medicine brands leaving Russian pharmacies after autumn 2026 market changes

What 72.ru reported

Some medicines will soon disappear from Russian pharmacies, the regional outlet 72.ru reported, publishing a list of the products concerned. According to the publication, the Russian pharmaceutical market went through significant changes in the autumn of 2026 that may affect consumers accustomed to particular medicine brands.

The report is addressed primarily to patients rather than to the supply chain: its stated purpose is to let readers check whether the brands they buy regularly are among those leaving the shelves. 72.ru describes the affected products as vital medicines.

What the report does not specify

The available material does not identify the manufacturers behind the withdrawn brands, the volumes involved, the regulatory decisions or commercial choices that triggered the exits, or the dates on which individual products stop being supplied. No pricing data, registration numbers or market-share figures are given. Until those details are published, the basic questions for the trade remain open:

• which international nonproprietary names (INNs) lose only a brand, and which lose their sole supplier;
• whether the exits are permanent de-registrations or temporary supply interruptions;
• whether domestic producers and generic suppliers already hold valid marketing authorisations for the same molecules;
• how much stock remains in distributor warehouses and pharmacy inventories.

How a brand exit turns into a shortage

For distributors and pharmacy chains, the commercial impact of a brand exit depends almost entirely on substitutability. Where a molecule is covered by several registered products, dispensing shifts to the remaining suppliers and the disruption is limited to brand loyalty and price. Where a single brand holds the registration for a specific dosage form or a narrow therapeutic niche — paediatric formulations, injectables, hospital-only products — withdrawal removes the therapy from the market until another holder completes registration, a process measured in months rather than weeks.

The supply-chain causes behind such exits are usually mixed: discontinued low-margin stock-keeping units, pricing rules that make a product unprofitable to supply, logistics and payment frictions, and the cost and availability of active pharmaceutical ingredients, most of which are bought from Asian producers. Each factor works on its own timeline, which is why withdrawal lists are assembled gradually rather than announced at once.

What to watch next

For professionals, the useful signal is not the list itself but the registry behind it. Confirmation of an exit comes from the state register of medicines, from manufacturers' own notices to distributors, and from wholesale catalogues where discontinued items stop being quoted. Pharmacy chains usually see the effect first in order fill rates on specific products, ahead of any public announcement.

Substitution capacity is the second thing to track. Russian generic producers have been expanding output of widely used molecules, and parallel-import mechanisms remain available for products without a local equivalent. Both routes depend on imported active ingredients and on finished-dose shipments clearing customs and quality control. Where neither route is in place, patients move to analogues with different dosing, and prescribers absorb the switch.

Until the 72.ru list is cross-checked against the registry, the scale of the change cannot be quantified. The direction, however, is one the market has handled before: brands leave, molecules stay, and the adjustment lands on distributors, pharmacists and patients rather than on headline import volumes.