KYIV. April 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Sales of Indian medicines in Ukraine in 2018 in money terms could grow by up to 30%, Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers have said.

"We plan around 30% growth in sales and hope that 2018 year will be a fruitful year: we intend to bring from eight to 10 medicines to the market," a representative of Organosyn Ltd., Svitlana Sichkar said at a roundtable at Interfax-Ukraine, commenting on the plans of the company for this year.

Dr. Reddy's pharmaceutical company also hopes to have the same growth in money terms, its representative, Rajeev Nayak said.

He said that in 2018, the company would bring six new medicines to the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market, and four of them are intended to treat cancer.

A representative of Euro Lifecare, Sanjeev Bhagat, said that in 2018, revenue from sales of Indian pharmaceutical products in Ukraine could grow by 20-25%.

In turn, President of the Indian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association (IPMA) Dr. Ramanan Unni Parambath Menon expressed hope that there will be positive changes in the Ukrainian legislation.

"We [the association] are actively participating in the discussion of some draft legal documents and rules, which, we hope, would positively influence our operations in the country," he said.

Marketing Director of Business Credit Company Olena Karchevska said that India as a manufacturer was third in the volume of pharmacy sales in packages in 2017 after Ukraine and Germany, and in money term (the national currency) it was fourth after Ukraine, Germany and the UK.

In particular, the volume of sales of Indian medicines on the Ukrainian market was UAH 3.43 billion or 5% of total retail pharmacy sales (UAH 68.3 billion. The share of medicines in revenue of Indian companies in the country is 91%, and the rest are nutritional supplements, cosmetics, sanitary and hygienic products and medical products.

Karchevska said that the share of antibiotics of total sales of Indian medicines was 21%, medicines for the nervous and musculoskeletal systems was 19% each, medicines for treating respiratory and heart diseases – 13% and 5% respectively, and other medicines – 10%.

Dr. Menon said that at present, all Indian transnational companies are present on the Ukrainian market.

The IPMA (the Indian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association) brings together Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing companies that meet high international standards, including US FDA (the United States), UK MHRA (Britain), MCC (South Africa), TGA (Australia), WHO GMP (WHO), GMP (Ukraine), which have representative offices in Ukraine. Euro Lifecare Ltd, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd., Macleods Pharmaceutical Limited, Organosyn Ltd. are members of the association.