What Top Pharmacy Chains Expect Now: Lessons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

Top Pharmacy Chains: What Is the Difference Between Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan?

By Igor Bystrov, Regional Commercial Head at SONA Exim, part of SONA Group

Over more than 20 years of working in Pharma and FMCG, I have had the opportunity to work with different markets, business models, teams and clients.

Recently, however, an interesting professional challenge has emerged in my work: the opportunity to look simultaneously at the development of the pharmacy business in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

I have known the Ukrainian market for many years through my work with distributors, national and regional pharmacy chains, manufacturers and other participants in the pharmaceutical market.

Kazakhstan became a new experience for me at the beginning of 2026.

Uzbekistan, meanwhile, is a market I am only beginning to explore.

This difference in experience led me to several interesting questions:

• Are there principles that work equally well in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan?
• Can successful experience from one market simply be transferred to another?
• And what actually determines success in a partnership between a pharmaceutical company and a major pharmacy chain?

These questions are especially interesting to me because today, working with leading pharmacy chains has long gone beyond price, discounts, promotions or purchasing volumes.

Category development, product availability, sell-out, data quality, brand visibility, joint planning, investment efficiency and, most importantly, the ability of the manufacturer and the pharmacy chain to build a long-term partnership are becoming increasingly important.

At the same time, every market has its own specifics. What works extremely well in Ukraine will not necessarily deliver the same result in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan.

That is why I decided to look at these three markets not as three separate stories, but as an opportunity to identify common principles and local differences in working with leading pharmacy chains.

Ukraine

A market where partnership has become a necessity.

The Ukrainian pharmaceutical market has changed dramatically in recent years. Even despite the “marketing-free” 2025, the concentration of sales within major pharmacy chains continues to increase, and with it, the very model of interaction between manufacturers and customers is changing.

If previously a significant part of negotiations could be built around price, bonuses and purchasing volumes, today that is no longer enough. A leading pharmacy chain wants to understand:

What will we gain from this partnership?
How will the category develop?
How will sell-out increase?
What role will the brand play?
How will we measure the effectiveness of investment?

And this, in my opinion, is where the most important change has taken place. The manufacturer is no longer simply a supplier of products; it is becoming a partner to the pharmacy chain in developing the business.

At the same time, the Ukrainian market has another very important feature: intense competition and a relatively high level of professionalism among the main players. Simply offering a better price is therefore no longer enough. You need to offer a better business model for cooperation.

Kazakhstan

High potential and completely different dynamics.

Kazakhstan is a much newer experience for me, and that is exactly why it is especially interesting to compare. The market has its own characteristics: geography, population concentration in major cities, the role of large pharmacy chains, distribution specifics and differences in consumer behaviour.

At first glance, the operating model may appear quite similar to the Ukrainian one. But once you begin working more deeply with customers, you realise that the same business idea can produce completely different results.

Take investment in trade activity, for example. In Ukraine, we have long been used to evaluating not only purchasing volume, but also what happens after the product has been delivered.

Is the product on the shelf?
Is it being sold to the end consumer?
Is the level of distribution sufficient?
Is the promotion working?
Are investments being returned in the form of additional sell-out?

In Kazakhstan, these questions are also becoming increasingly important. And this is where I see enormous potential for developing partnerships between manufacturers and leading pharmacy chains.

The question is no longer simply: “How much can we sell to the chain?” but rather: “How much additional business can we create together?”

This is a fundamentally different level of conversation.

Uzbekistan

A market that is only beginning to reveal its opportunities.

Uzbekistan is currently the least familiar to me of the three markets, but that is precisely what makes it so interesting. It is a market with significant potential, a large population and strong prospects for the further development of modern pharmacy retail.

In my opinion, one of the key characteristics of Uzbekistan is that many business processes are still in an active stage of formation. And this creates a unique opportunity.

When a market is already established, companies often have to adapt to the existing rules of the game. When a market is still developing, there is an opportunity to influence what those rules will become.

This is where manufacturers can play an important role by helping pharmacy chains develop categories, improve planning, use modern analytical tools and build a more transparent model of cooperation.

What unites these three markets?

Despite all the differences, I see several things that are becoming universal.

1. Sell-in can no longer be the main metric.

We can sell a huge volume of products to a pharmacy chain. But if those products are not sold to the end consumer, we are simply creating a problem for the following month. That is why the real indicator of a healthy business is the balance between sell-in, stock and sell-out.

2. Data is becoming the foundation of business development. This is a very important factor.

3. Investment must have a clear result.

A discount, promotion, visibility, additional placement, digital activity or other trade activities are all investments. And every investment should answer a simple question:

What additional result does it create?

Not simply turnover or purchasing volume, but real incremental business growth.

4. The best model is win-win. Everyone talks about it, but does everyone actually implement it?

The pharmacy chain wants to earn more. The manufacturer wants to develop the brand. The consumer wants to receive a quality product in the right place and at an acceptable price.

If the business model takes the interests of all three parties into account, it has a chance to be sustainable in the long term. If only one party wins, sooner or later the system stops working.

What cannot simply be copied?

And here, perhaps, is the most important CONCLUSION: there is no single universal model for working with leading pharmacy chains.

You can transfer principles, experience and tools. But you cannot simply copy a strategy. What works in Ukraine needs to be adapted for Kazakhstan.

What works in Kazakhstan will not necessarily be effective in Uzbekistan. Culture, market structure, competition, consumer behaviour, the role of distributors and the concentration of pharmacy retail all change the rules of the game.

So I would put it very simply:

Principles can be regional. Strategy must always be local.

And what comes next?

It seems to me that the next stage in the development of pharmacy retail in these countries is a transition from the “manufacturer – pharmacy chain” model to a model in which “partners develop the category together.”

Pharmacy chains have enormous amounts of data on consumer behaviour. Manufacturers have knowledge of categories, brands, marketing and product development. By combining these resources, it is possible to create considerably more value than by simply negotiating price and purchasing volume.

That is why I believe the future lies in joint planning, transparent data, clear KPIs and long-term partnership.

And perhaps the most important question to ask a leading pharmacy chain today is no longer:

“How much are you ready to buy from us?”

It is a completely different question:

“What can we do together so that your business and our brand grow faster?”

In my opinion, this is where a real partnership begins.