Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, launched online a new pharmaceutical production at the BratskChemSyntez plant. Denis Manturov, the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, as well as Igor Kobzev, the Governor of Irkutsk Oblast, took part in the opening ceremony.
The BratskChemSyntez pharmaceutical plant which is one of the main investment projects in Bratsk is part of the Pharmasyntez Group of Companies. In a video conference call, Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, launched a new line for production of pharmaceutical substances for the treatment of tuberculosis, hepatitis, HIV and COVID-19.
“The capacities being commissioned today will allow us to increase the production of high-quality and effective drugs used, in particular, for the treatment of coronavirus infection, tuberculosis, diabetes mellitus, hepatitis, and other serious diseases. People need these drugs, and they need them literally every day. We will continue to support such projects and gear up our development institutions for such tasks,” the President said.
“We are reminded right now, in this difficult situation, that the availability of pharmaceutical substances production at the basic heading level is extremely important. BratskChemSyntez has the technological capabilities to produce 36 pharmaceutical substances with international non-proprietary names from the List of Strategically Important Drugs, and it is planned to broaden the product range to 40 INNs in the near term. The launch of a new line in Bratsk contributes to the import substitution, it will allow us to increase the amount of Russian raw materials in domestic medicines up to 50%,”the head of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade said.
Anti-Covid pharmaceutical substances such as Remdesivir and Favipiravir are also produced at the plant in Bratsk.
“The accumulated technological competence has allowed to start production of anti-Covid drugs quickly. The company plans to produce about 250 thousand packages of the finished drug product from 1.5 tons of Favipiravir pharmaceutical substance in the first quarter of 2021. During 2021, we plan to produce 10 tons of pharmaceutical substances in accordance with the production capacity, which is equivalent to over 1 million packages. The actual volume of production will depend on the needs of the market. We expect that a Marketing Authorization for Favipiravir will be received literally by the end of the week. Thanks to it, the current production volume in Russia will increase by 100 thousand packages and will amount to a total of about 600 thousand packages in December,”Denis Manturov emphasized.
As the Minister said, in 2021, in addition to Favipiravir, Pharmasyntez plans to produce substances for antibiotics used for the treatment of Covid such as Linezolid (2 tons), Levofloxacin (5 tons), and Moxifloxacin (2 tons). If necessary, the volumes can be increased. In addition, BratskChemSyntez will start producing pharmaceutical substances for the production of anticancer drugs in 2021.
“After the launch of the next line of the plant (a workshop for the production of pharmaceutical substances for anticancer drugs) we will be able to significantly reduce dependence on imports in this segment as well,” Denis Manturov said.
Vikram Punia, President of Pharmasyntez Group of Companies: “Producing pharmaceutical substances is the next level of development for any enterprise manufacturing finished drug products. The synthesis of critical raw material is much more complicated than the production of finished drug products. It was a real challenge for us, since the company produced only finished dosage forms and we did not have competencies, technologies, and qualified personnel to perform this task. In fact, we had to create a new culture, a culture of production of high-tech substances. We have done a great job over the past 5 years, working with universities and institutes, as well as various partners through the Ministry of Industry and Trade, recruiting dozens of competent employees from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities. In the end, we have succeeded and today we are ready to start large-scale production of pharmaceutical substances! We can already produce modern substances for the production of antivirals for the treatment of coronavirus infection: Favipiravir, Remdesivir, Lopinavir, and Ritonavir, as well as antimicrobials: Linezolid, Levofloxacin, and Moxifloxacin.
In my opinion, the BratskChemSyntez plant is a kind of springboard for us, since the new plant can produce about 100 tons of pharmaceutical substances per year, and with the knowledge and understanding of the difficulties of this production, we are preparing to design a new plant for production of pharmaceutical substances in the amount of more than 1000 tons per year! This will be over 10% of the needs of the entire country!"
The production of active pharmaceutical ingredients receives an active support from the government. Thus, Industrial Development Fund has allocated a loan in amount of 2.7 billion rubles to pharmaceutical companies for the implementation of 8 projects under three loan programmes (Import Substitution Projects, Development Projects and Leasing Projects). “In addition, the Fund allocated funding for increasing the production of substances necessary to fight the new coronavirus infection under the Epidemic Disease Response Program. There is also a practice of creating production of pharmaceutical substances with the arrangements of special investment contracts,” the head of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade said.