News
Apostore offering automation solutions for the Russian pharmaceutical industry
20.09.2018
Logistics services in pharmaceutical wholesaling have special conditions to fulfil. KNAPP is offering innovative solutions for every step along the healthcare supply chain.
KNAPP and Apostore have been cooperating from as early as 2012 and since 2014, KNAPP has had a 49 percent participation in the KHT/Apostore Group. Together, they are investing in a second mainstay – automatic picking machines for pharmaceutical wholesaling. After several years of successful collaboration, at the beginning of this year, KNAPP expanded its participating interest in Apostore and assumed 100 percent of the KHT/Apostore Group.
Pharmaceutical wholesalers, pharmaceutical producers and pharmacies all over the world are using the technologies produced by KNAPP and Apostore. »In Russia there are already several references and we want to carry this success forward,« stated Christian Bauer, Managing Director of the KHT/Apostore Group.
At KNAPP’s annual »MOVE« event at the beginning of September this year in Moscow, perspectives on automation solutions for the Russian pharmaceutical sector were discussed. Russian customers had the opportunity to exchange ideas with the KNAPP and Apostore employees.
According to a current report from Germany Trade & Invest, the pharmaceutical industry is growing in Russia. The government plans to significantly raise the market share of domestic preparations in the coming years. Exports and imports of medicines are on the rise. Against this background, German companies have strengthened their involvement and have begun to initiate an increasing number of new projects. For example, the German manufacturer, Bionorica, is planning to build a new facility in Voronezh, 500 kilometres south of Moscow. This trend in the Russian pharmaceutical market is in line with the government’s pilot project to establish an automatic system for identifying medicines. In the future, medicines will be monitored for price and product quality in pharmacies using a QR code. This identification was voluntary until the end of 2017 and will later be obligatory. New developments in regulations within the Eurasian Economic Union are also being implemented. The group of five states has agreed on common rules for medicines and pharmaceutical products.
»Pharmaceutical companies in Russia are deciding more and more to free themselves from their logistic duties in order to concentrate on their core areas of expertise and are therefore looking to outsource with a reliable partner. This is the type of partner that we are,« explained Frank Rossbach, Managing Director of KNAPP in Russia.
Russian pharmacy chains from Khabarovsk to Krasnodar are counted among Apostore’s customers. Currently, negotiations are underway with customers in Moscow, Siberia and the Altai region. Ilya Ratnikov, Sales Manager for Apostore in Russia, is confident: »Many Russian customers in the pharmaceutical industry are choosing quality and reliability, and therefore solutions from the KNAPP group.«
With Apostore, the KNAPP group completes the healthcare supply chain all the way to the point of sale. »Reaching a market-leading position for the entire pharmaceutical industry is why KNAPP and Apostore are investing in technologies such as the KNAPP-Store, which can cover not only pharmaceutical wholesaling, but also the core business of the pharmacies,« explained Christian Bauer, Managing Director of the KHT/Apostore Group.