OREANDA-NEWS. On December 23, 2008 at a press-conference organized by the "Rossiiskaya Gazeta" newspaper, Timofey Nizhegorodtsev, the Head of the FAS Russia's Department for Supervision of the Social Sphere and Commerce, summarized the "Analysis of the market of the services for retail trade of medicines, products of medical purpose and related goods", completed by the experts of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

FAS Russia's experts measured the retailers' shares within the boundaries of municipalities (city districts and municipal districts).

The experts took into account sales data requested by the regional offices of FAS Russia from the companies.

FAS Russia discovered pharmacy chains with the characteristics of market dominance in 51.8% of the cities with population 100 000 - 500 000 people, in 34.8% of the cities with population from 500 000 to 1 million people, and in 45.5% of the cities with population over a million. According to the survey, there are no such companies in Moscow and St Petersburg.

"By the end of next week the Head of FAS Russia will sign an instruction to the regional FAS Russia's offices. Within the next three months the regional offices must clarify the data about the companies that control over 35% of the local markets in order to include them in the Register of the entities that have dominant market position", informed Timofey Nizhegorodtsev.

According to Mr Nizhegorodtsev, as soon as the pharmacy chains that dominate the local markets are put under control of the antimonopoly authority, FAS Russia will raise a number of demands as it is concerned with the trend for "removing the medicine range", when cheap medicines are replaced with their expensive analogues.

FAS Russia will demand that the pharmacy chains, included in the regional registers of the entities, which have dominant market position, select some pharmacies to sell medicines in accordance with the government programmes for provision of medicines.

"The Federal Antimonopoly Service will suppress attempts to fix monopolistically high prices for medicines", emphasized Timofey Nizhegorodtsev.