The myth comes from the West. The quality of Russian medicines is not inferior to foreign ones

From year to year, the Russian pharmaceutical industry is gaining momentum, preventing Western manufacturers from bypassing themselves in many areas. Kira Zaslavskaya, Director of New Products at Promomed biopharmaceutical company, told Arguments and Facts about this at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Read more in the ideo-interview.

Photo: Evgeny Boyarintsev / Argumenty I Fakty

20 years of keeping up with the times

— Kira Yakovlevna, your company is 20 years old. How has the company's capacity grown over the years, and how has the drug portfolio increased?
— For me, the growth of the Company is a personal story: I came here back in 2009 as a student and took an active part in the transformation of the company. At the time of my arrival, it was actually a three-product company. We immediately thought that we needed our own production, that it was necessary to make innovative drugs, help people, and solve global problems.
It so happened that our interests completely coincided with the needs that the state had, including the localization of production, the synthesis of domestic substances, that is, what the medicine consists of, and much more. We kept up with the times, kept up with the state, and this helped us in many ways. At the same time, we have never been afraid to take risks. Back in 2010, the company became the first to conduct the largest research in the world of endocrinology, Primavera, proving the effectiveness of our drug for the treatment of obesity.
This is how we grew and developed, and now we have become one of Russia's largest innovative biopharmaceutical companies. We have our own factory, which is a huge production facility that makes both substances and ready—made dosage forms. We have the only fully automated production of solid forms in Russia (more than a billion tablets and capsules per year), which eliminates the risk of human error, and our own center for the development of innovative drugs.
In other words, we have grown tenfold, and now our portfolio includes more than 350 drugs for the treatment of socially significant diseases, including obesity, diabetes, HIV, cancer, autoimmune diseases, joint diseases, and others. And there are more than 150 products in development. And as the head of the New Products directorate, of course, I am happy to see how the company is growing.

Against obesity

— In Russia, 40 million people have varying degrees of obesity, 20 million live with prediabetes. Among your products, there are drugs that help stop the development of metabolic disorders. How effective are they?
— We have a complete portfolio of drugs for the treatment of obesity, diabetes and the prevention of the development of the very diseases you are talking about. After all, obesity leads to stroke, heart attack, erectile dysfunction, infertility and many other ills. And we have been experts in solving this issue for 20 years. We have developed drugs for those who cannot control their eating behavior, and for children, and drugs of the latest generations that allow you to effectively lose weight without losing muscle mass, due to which a beautiful and toned silhouette is immediately formed. It is important that the drugs work in such a way that a person can lose weight comfortably, without drastic lifestyle changes, gradually getting used to eating right. And most importantly, it has been proven that these drugs can reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases by 86%, and reduce the risk of diabetes by 94%.

The Duel with the West

— Sometimes we hear that Russian drugs are significantly inferior in quality to German, Swiss or American ones. Are such claims justified, or are they just echoes of reverence for the West?
— This is a persistent myth that is peddled by foreign companies. Why are they doing this? Because it benefits them. In fact, the situation has changed a long time ago. Many Russian companies can already compete with foreign ones. After all, we make innovative and high-quality drugs.
At the same time, foreigners have long lost the price fight with Russian companies. For example, in the West, drugs like ours for obesity cost 1.5 thousand dollars per package, while in Russia it is around 3-4 thousand rubles. And if we recall that our company has launched an innovative subscription system for course-based medications for the country, with which you can save up to 40% of the cost of the drug, it turns out that a day of therapy is equal in price to a cup of coffee, and in any corner of Russia. So what else can foreigners do but talk badly about the quality of our medicines?
We are not unfounded: to ensure that no one doubts the quality of our products, we constantly conduct various studies. And not only at the development stage, as required by law. We continue to explore the drug as soon as it enters the market — in patients with different diseases, in different categories, in children, and so on. We publish this data without hiding anything, all information is publicly available. In addition, we have a hotline that you can always call and ask a question. And all this in order to make sure that the quality of our products meets high standards.

Sources

1. Aif.ru