EP: Darnitsa Pharmaceutical Company suspended production due to a conflict with pharmacies

Since March 2025, the Pharmaceutical Company "Darnitsa" has twice stopped production due to a conflict with the five largest pharmacy chains. This was reported by Ekonomichna Pravda.

We are talking about the ANC, Podorozhnyk, 911, Zdorovye Zdorovye, and Dobroho dnia pharmacy chains, which generate about 70% of revenues from the sale of medicines to Ukrainians.

According to Darnitsa's management, after the state, responding to the company's complaint, banned marketing payments to pharmacies, the latter allegedly began to limit purchases of its drugs and block sales.

Due to the inability to sell its products, the company stopped production for three weeks in March, and then from June to August. In total, the downtime lasted nine weeks. In addition, the company had to cut staff.

In June, the plant lost about 30% of its sales compared to 2024, and over the next two months, the decline reached 50%.

Darnitsa has 14 production lines for different types of drugs. Currently, its warehouse is 95% full, so the company has switched to manual planning: depending on demand and the market situation, individual lines are shut down.

"The last time we stopped for maintenance was not in 1998. What is happening now is a shock for the entire pharmaceutical market," says Kateryna Zagoriy, member of the Board of Directors of Darnitsa.

In 2024, Darnitsa's share in the pharmaceutical market was 15% in terms of the volume of medicines sold and approximately 5% in terms of money. Since March 2025, according to the company's CEO Andrii Obrizan, these figures have fallen to 10% and 3%, respectively.

Similar information is provided by analytical company Proxima Research.

As a result, the pharmaceutical company dropped from second to fourth place among the largest drug manufacturers.

• Pursuant to the NSDC decision of February 12, the Cabinet of Ministers regulated margins for medicines, banned the practice of marketing payments, and resumed price checks in pharmacy chains. In particular, the trade margin on medicines for pharmacies is limited to 35%, for distributors – 8%.
• As of early April, the total expenditures of leading Ukrainian pharmaceutical companies on compensation to pharmacies and distributors after the reduction of selling prices for medicines from March 1 exceeded 601,7 mln UAH .
• In May, pharmacy associations and drug manufacturers criticized the new version of the MoH resolution on marketing services in the pharmaceutical market.
• In July, the government established quotas for the supply of medicines to combat market monopolization.