Antidepressant Sales in Russia Hit a Five-Year High in Early 2024

Russians bought more than 3.5 million packs of antidepressants for almost 3 billion roubles in the first 11 weeks of 2024, a five-year high in money terms according to DSM Group data reported by Kommersant. Sales grew 45% in value and 33% in volume year on year, and doctors link the surge less to panic than to a quiet change in prescribing habits across Russia.

A five-year record in money terms

The scale of the early-2024 surge is best read against four previous years. In the first 11 weeks of 2023 pharmacies sold 2.7 million packs for 2 billion roubles; in the same period of 2022, 3.3 million packs for 2.4 billion roubles; in 2021 and 2020, 1.8 million packs for 1.2 billion and 1.1 billion roubles respectively. The 2024 figure — above 3.5 million packs and close to 3 billion roubles — is 1.5 times the early-2023 value and the highest sum in at least five years, DSM Group calculates.

Retail chains confirm the volume side of the story. At Aptechnaya Set 36.6, operating the 36.6 and Gorzdrav brands, antidepressant sales in the 11 weeks grew 41% against the same period of 2023 and 12% against 2022. At Apteka 25 the indicator increased by more than 15%, according to manager Ilya Antonenkov, and at Apteka Farma customers bought 1.1 million packs against 1 million a year earlier.

Prescribing, not panic

Medics tie the rise to a change in treatment methods rather than to a single shock. Antidepressants are increasingly prescribed instead of outdated plant-based or sedative remedies such as corvalol, phenibut or afobazole, whose effect proved weak and short-term. Neurologist Valery Kuvaev describes two forces: the pressure of time and the current social and political situation, which have accumulated on people's nervous systems, and a double willingness — patients became more ready to take the drugs and doctors more ready to prescribe them.

The prescriber base has widened as well. It is not only psychiatrists who prescribe antidepressants but mainly neurologists, gastroenterologists and gynaecologists, Kuvaev notes, because the drugs treat not only depression in its pure form but also accompanying chronic symptoms such as headache, dizziness, back pain and various anxiety states — and they cope with those symptoms more effectively than light herbal remedies.

Catching up with the West

Rising bar chart standing for the record growth of antidepressant sales in Russian pharmacies

Sergey Shulyak, chief executive of DSM Group, frames the trend as convergence: consumption of these drugs in Russia was initially very low, and the country is now approaching per-capita consumption levels in Europe or the United States. With any anxiety, people turn to doctors, who prescribe either sedatives or antidepressants; and where normalising life processes and sleep could once be managed with light plant-based sedatives such as Novo-Passit or valerian, the tendency now is towards an effect here and now rather than long courses of infusions or valerian tea.

Market context

The surge sits inside a growing pharmacy market. According to RNC Pharma, pharmacies earned almost 1.5 trillion roubles in 2023, with clients switching to more expensive drugs; the influence of any single drug group on the market is minimal, but rising demand was recorded for antidepressants, contraceptives and sleep-improving preparations — a cluster that points to stress-related and lifestyle demand rather than to one therapeutic fashion.

What to watch next

Whether full-year 2024 volume passes the peak 2022 level of 13 million packs, or whether the early-year spike fades with seasonality.
The split between price and volume in the 45% value growth, given drug price inflation above general inflation.
Supply continuity of imported brands after the logistics disruptions distributors have faced since 2022.
The prescribing mix beyond psychiatry, the channel that turned antidepressants into a mass-market category.
Spillover into adjacent categories: sleep preparations and contraceptives showed the same demand direction in 2023.

The record of early 2024 is therefore two stories in one figure: a health-care system that prescribes modern antidepressants instead of legacy sedatives, and a consumer who wants an effect here and now. Both stories raise the same question for the rest of the year — how much of the growth is a one-off catch-up and how much is a new baseline.