The current financial crisis has severely affected the state of the Russian medical equipment market. Commercial banks reacted to the government debt default and the fall of the ruble by freezing companies' current accounts and stopping any money transfers. Local medical equipment manufacturers whose financial and competitive positions were rather shaky before the crisis, have been hurt because the money they were owed by distributors and clinics was frozen in the banks.
Many banks are now on the verge of bankruptcy or have started restructuring their debt to clients.
Under the new circumstances, manufacturers, who do not have vast experience in dealing with financial instruments and selling debts to other financial or banking institutions, are threatened by the possibility that their money will never be paid back to them. Foreign companies were hurt because the crisis prevented them from starting any new deals with the currency and banking system in chaos. In the absence of a working banking system or the willingness of suppliers to grant credit terms, many businesses have been forced into seeking new methods for continuing business under current conditions. The crisis have started a series of structural changes in the Russian financial system which will affect the medical market. The production of medical equipment and devices is currently concentrated at about 1,000 enterprises, the majority of which are private.