2017 promises to be especially successful for Russian producers of biologically active additives (BAA). More precisely, one and very successful manufacturer - the corporation "Evalar". Despite the general decline in sales of bioadditives, which covered the Russian market in recent years, "Evalar" was able to strengthen its position.

"For 9 months of 2016, we managed to increase our share in this sector to almost 18%, and this is against the background of the stagnation of the market as a whole and the negative trends in consumer behavior associated with falling incomes," the founder of the "Kommersant" Evalar "and its general director Larissa Prokopieva. She also admitted that she did not intend to surrender. This is a very modest statement for a man who wants to lead a real revolution in the market in his favor.

The matter is that from the point of view of business "Evalar" remains the producer of all useful "tricks". For example, the most popular product in the company's portfolio is the "Turboslim" supplements, which are positioned as a means of weight loss. Their sales account for about 25% of all sales in the company's portfolio. But this is yesterday.

"Evalar" intends to firmly establish itself in the market of proper medicines. For a few very obvious reasons. One group of these reasons is related to the overall demographic trend: the aging population is very sensitive to advertising "natural miracle drugs." The other is explained by the strengthening of the company's position - both in the market space and in the political space. In addition to the dominant role in the market of dietary supplements, Evalar has powerful lobbying opportunities, secured by the political influence of Alexander's son Larisa Prokopieva, who was elected to the State Duma in 2011 directly from the position of the director for strategic development of Evalar (and then re-elected again). If the main Prokopiev family dream comes true - to get the post of governor of the Altai Territory, then Larissa's slogan "Evalar" is Altai! ", Can change the order of words in the sentence, and Altai, thus, become" Evalar ".

"Evalar" is Altai, and vice versa

But for this to change only the order of words is not enough. "Evalar" wants to change the order of affairs in the market, including geopolitics. Currently, if we consider in kind, about 80% of all sales of dietary supplements are provided by national producers. But the picture looks quite different in value: foreign food supplements account for almost half of all sales. This means that imports dominate the segment of premium, expensive additives. These are, as a rule, additives that are distributed through pharmacy networks. Register a bunch of new pills, release them at a new factory and sell in pharmacies - these are the main operational tasks of Larissa Prokopieva's strategic plan for reaching a new level.

First of all, the director of "Evalar" Larisa Prokopieva wants to significantly expand the market of "natural medicines" due to the expansion of its nomenclature. It is known that Evalar has applied for registration of three dozen of its new "preparations". And this is only the beginning. According to Prokopieva, in the Russian market, in principle, there are very few "natural medicines": only five percent of registered drugs fall into the category of natural drugs, and in Germany, she says, about half.

In other words, a "big drug revolution" is planned on the Russian market, the goal of which is to drastically fill Russian pharmacies with dietary supplements. It is not known how many of the drugs registered in Germany are actually sold at local pharmacies. But it is known that the plans of "Evalar" are quite real material nature. In Biisk, a large construction project is currently underway: a new industrial building with an area of ​​16,000 square meters is being built on an area of ​​3 hectares. This is a new plant, the construction of which the Prokopiev family invested about 5 billion rubles. Producing a new plant will be capable of about 6 billion tablets and capsules per year.

What will be filled with all these pills and capsules? In the commercials of the "Evalar" the fields and fields filled with grasses of the Altai Territory, which are grown by the hardworking employees of the company, are in full swing. But to say what part of production they are closing is difficult. Since 2013, "Evalar" does not publish reports, eliminating the general figures. Larissa Prokopieva herself acknowledges the fact of purchasing imported extracts, but does not indicate their share. The more interesting this statistic will look when the plant enters the production of "natural medicines", which will be prudently approved at the federal level. And they will get political support - on the political side. Or maybe the governor's. We will soon find out about this when we are in the pharmacy.

Meanwhile

Pharmacy chains have become the vanguard of the promotion of dietary supplements. Already, biologically active supplements have taken the second place in popularity in Russian pharmacies. According to data for the first half of 2017, they provided about 4% of their turnover in value terms. Now in pharmacies are represented more than 2.3 thousand different brands of dietary supplements, from about 900 manufacturers. Just a couple of years ago pharmacy sales channels of dietary supplements stagnated, declining in physical terms by an average of 6-7%, but in value terms, they grew. Such dynamics usually speak of the presence of a dominant player in the market who can control the market. Thus, it will not be a big exaggeration to build a scenario in which the future market of drugs in Russia will be a simple food chain of "Evalar".