The pharmaceutical industry faced the equipment – Newspaper Kommersant No. 175 (7376) of 09/22/2022

R-Pharm, contrary to previous agreements with the Moscow City Hall, will not be able to start supplying drugs worth 18.4 billion rubles this year. under an offset contract, which provides for the launch of a new production facility by the investor in exchange for guarantees from the authorities to purchase a certain amount of medicines. Now the project can start only next year. Due to the termination of cooperation with Russia of a number of equipment manufacturers from Europe and the United States, the launch of other new pharmaceutical enterprises may be delayed.

The R-Opra company (part of the R-Pharm group of Alexei Repik), which concluded an offset contract with the Moscow City Hall four years ago for the supply of 31 types of medicines, will not be able to start supplying them this year, as provided by the document. Deliveries will begin in 2023, the changes have been agreed with the city authorities, Vasily Ignatiev, general director of the enterprise, told Kommersant. In mid-September, the Moscow authorities also reported that the commissioning of the buildings of the new plant was scheduled for the first quarter of 2023.

R-Opra signed a contract for the supply of oncological, antipsychotic, antirheumatic and other drugs in October 2018. The terms of the contract imply that the investor must obtain permission to commission new facilities no later than four years from the date of the contract, that is, in 2022. Already this year, the investor must supply drugs worth 2.6 billion rubles. for the needs of Moscow and is obliged to provide the same volume annually for seven years.

R-Pharm does not comment on the reasons for the postponement. The Moscow Health Department did not respond to Kommersant’s request on Wednesday.

The company could have faced technical difficulties related to the unavailability of equipment or difficulty in supplying them, Nikolay Bespalov, development director at RNC Pharma, believes. This year, many large foreign manufacturers of complex pharmaceutical equipment – Agilent, Shimadzu, Thermo Fisher – have stopped deliveries, which has become a problem for the pharmaceutical industry, says Vikram Punia, President of Pharmasyntez. Nevertheless, according to him, the equipment is supplied through third countries, but it takes more time and money.

In addition to R-Pharm, offset contracts in the pharmaceutical industry with Moscow were concluded by Biocad (already supplying drugs) and Federal State Unitary Enterprise Endopharm. PSK-Pharma has signed two contracts with the Moscow region and Moscow. According to the first contract, the supply of drugs began on time, that is, this year, says Evgenia Shapiro, general director of PSK-Pharma. The second enterprise should be put into operation in 2024. The company does not expect any delays.

Endopharm, under the terms of the contract concluded last year, must put the enterprise into operation in 2023. The company is engaged in the modernization of the Lefortovsky branch. The first stage – the commissioning of the drug development center – was completed in June this year, and by the end of 2022 the scientific and laboratory building should be reconstructed, the company told Kommersant.

Difficulties with the supply of equipment may affect the postponement of the commissioning of other enterprises, but in the current conditions, the deviation from the planned dates is unlikely to exceed a few months, Nikolai Bespalov believes.

Pharmasyntez has managed to complete major projects, says Mr. Punia. But in the next two years, it is planned to launch two new plants – in these projects, the company takes into account the risk of an extended delivery time for equipment, he continues.

Active Component President Alexander Semyonov is considering building a new plant in Pushkin. “We clearly understand that all equipment can be brought from India and China and delivered from Russia,” he says. Therefore, he expects that there should not be large delays in the implementation of the project.

Polina Gritsenko