Corvalol

2023: Corvalol sales in Russia declined to their lowest since 2018

In 2023, 40 million packages of corvalol were sold in Russia, which is 7% less than a year earlier, when citizens purchased about 43 million units. This is evidenced by the data of the marketing agency DSM Group, published on March 1, 2024.

As Vedomosti writes with reference to the DSM Group report, sales of corvalol in Russia are declining from year to year: in 2021 they amounted to 46 million packages, in 2020 - 50 million units, in 2019 - 54 million units.

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Corvalol was developed in the USSR in the 1960s as a domestic analogue of German valocordin. The products are used as a soothing and vasodilator, reminds the publication.

The demand for valocordin in the Russian Federation is also steadily falling: sales of this drug in 2023 were measured 4 million packages, in 2022 - 4.5 million units, in 2021 - 5.3 million units, in 2020 - 6 million units, calculated in DSM Group.

According to the head physician of the flagship clinic "Be Healthy" Leonid Karev, sales of corvalol and valocordin in Russian pharmacies are declining because "doctors have stopped prescribing these drugs." The fact is that both drugs only help sleep and relieve anxiety, but do not improve the state of the cardiovascular system, but only mask the symptoms of diseases, complicating their treatment. The phenobarbital contained in the drugs has a number of side effects, due to which doctors stopped prescribing these drugs, replacing them with antidepressants, the effectiveness of which has been scientifically proven, Karev continues. In his opinion, the main demand for corvalol and valocordin probably falls on the elderly, who are used to using outdated methods of treatment.

Valeria Polyakova, a venereologist of the BestDoctor group of companies, agrees that for the treatment of anxiety, Russian doctors began to prescribe antidepressants with proven scientific effectiveness instead of corvalol.^[1]

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