Peter Bely: The Russian pharmaceutical industry has completed the task of import substitution

In the face of sanctions and a decrease in the supply of medicines from foreign companies, the Russian pharmaceutical industry is demonstrating a convincing victory: domestic manufacturers have managed to fulfill the task of import substitution of the most important drugs. This was stated to the correspondent of the "RG" at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum by Peter Bely, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Promomed Group of Companies.

Interview with Peter Bely, Chairman of the Board of Directors of PJSC PROMOMED Author: Sergey Bazanov

Assessing the situation in the field of drug safety in the country, the expert noted that foreign pharmaceutical companies have reduced the number of clinical trials conducted in Russia by 20 times.

"And without clinical trials, registration of new innovative drugs is impossible," Petr Bely emphasized. - This means that very soon supernova drugs will stop coming to Russia. Who should do this job now? Of course, the Russian pharmaceutical industry!

And today we see how Russian pharmaceutical companies are moving in different directions, but each demonstrates innovative development. New vaccines, full-cycle biotechnological drugs, and new drugs for the treatment of diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome are being created. Breakthrough drugs are being developed to defeat cancer and treat previously seemingly incurable diseases. In particular, there is a lot of talk about the chikugunya virus, which is 40 times more dangerous than covid. There is no treatment for it in the world, but in Russia there is - in particular, the Promomed company. Work on the creation of new medicines is ongoing.

Another task set by our regulators, the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, is that if foreign strategically important drugs are withdrawn from the market, we must be ready to replace any of them. And today we have completed this task. Now almost all the drugs on this list have been clinically tested and registered."

According to the expert, many imported drugs were protected by patents with a clear excess of patent protection. Over the past year and a half, about 30 patents of Big Pharma companies have been revoked.

Answering the question about what kind of support Russian pharmaceutical manufacturers expect today, Peter Bely stated that the state has already done a lot to help ensure the rapid development of the industry.

"For drugs that are strategically necessary and that solve unresolved medical problems, special mechanisms have been created to enable accelerated market entry," the expert explained. - Industrial development funds operate through the Ministry of Industry of the Russian Federation. In conditions of a very high loan rate, loans from the industrial development fund at 1-3% are one very effective opportunity to continue investing, building and creating new production facilities.

Regional support programs are also working well.

"We have a huge factory in Saransk. Local authorities are doing a lot to ensure that the innovative component of the pharmaceutical industry develops," emphasized Petr Bely. - The Government of Mordovia has relied on the development of biotech and the innovation cluster. The most important thing here is to be consistent, and then we will have more and more new drugs."

1. rg.ru