Kazakhstan’s pharmaceutical market continues to grow, but one challenge remains unchanged – dependence on imports. Spending on medicines is increasing, yet domestic production still covers only a small share of the country’s needs.
The market is growing faster than production: According to Proxima (MAT, August 2025):
- All categories – 928 billion tenge (+11% YoY), 753 million packages (–5%).
- Medicines only – 708.5 billion tenge (+10%), 464 million packages (–9%).
The market is becoming more expensive while the number of packages is falling. This reflects a gradual shift toward more advanced, higher-quality, and more expensive medicines. Consumption is growing “in depth,” not “in breadth” – a typical trend for developing pharmaceutical markets. But this trend automatically strengthens reliance on external suppliers.
What is happening in production: Bureau of National Statistics data shows that Kazakhstan’s pharmaceutical output grew from 38 billion tenge in 2014 to 175.8 billion tenge in 2024 – a 4.6× increase.
The sharpest rise came in 2020–2021 (+118%), driven by pandemic demand, but production later normalized.
Market vs. production: the scale is incomparable: According to IQVIA, Kazakhstan’s pharmaceutical market reached 1.118 trillion tenge in MAT’8’24. This is 6.3 times larger than domestic production in 2024 (175.8 billion tenge).
Even if we exclude markups, distribution costs, and public procurement, domestic manufacturing still covers only a small part of the demand.
What exactly Kazakhstan imports: To see the structure of this dependence, it’s enough to look at the HS codes used for pharmaceutical products. All items fall under group 30 “Pharmaceutical products,” which includes:
- 3001 – biological materials and organotherapy
- 3002 – serums, blood, vaccines, immunological products
- 3003 – non-dosed medicines (raw materials for further processing)
- 3004 – dosed, ready-to-use medicines
- 3005 – bandages and dressing materials
- 3006 – other specialized pharma products
The key drivers of import are:
- 73% – finished dosed medicines,
- 23% – vaccines and immunological preparations.
Other categories are much smaller – some products are made locally, others simply have low demand.
Kazakhstan’s pharmaceutical market is expanding, people are consuming more medicines, and the government is broadening healthcare coverage programs (including social health insurance). This creates strong and stable demand – but does not answer the main question: where will the medicines come from?
As long as the country imports:
- active pharmaceutical ingredients,
- vaccines and immunological products,
- and most finished medicines,
the local market remains vulnerable to:
- currency fluctuations,
- disruptions in global logistics,
- international shortages of raw materials.
This is why growing domestic production has not shifted the balance: new plants are opening, but they cannot yet cover the segments that require strong R&D, biotechnology capacity, ingredient production, and long-term investment.
What this means for the country
- Demand for medicines will continue rising – driven by demographics and expanding state programs.
- But the most important products are still purchased abroad, reinforcing supply dependence.
- This creates long-term risks for national pharmaceutical security.
To change the situation, Kazakhstan needs consistent progress across the entire value chain:
- research and development,
- ingredient localization,
- predictable regulation,
- investment,
- manufacturing capacity,
- and stable public procurement policy.
This is not only about building new factories. It’s about creating a full, self-sustaining pharmaceutical ecosystem capable of supplying the country with essential medicines. Such an ecosystem would gradually strengthen the domestic market and reduce the sector’s exposure to external shocks.
Tomiris Temirgalina, “PharmMedIndustry Kazakhstan” Association, specifically for www.economyKZ.org
