Current issue #22, 2017

Pharma market players argue about post Pharma-2020 times

The Pharma-2020 Program will expire in a little less than 2 years. But today the Russian pharma community acknowledges that the industry has appreciably changed for the better, and has grown stronger. No one doubts that all production targets will be achieved. The Ministry of Industry and Trade states that, to date, the market share of local drugs in value terms exceeds 30%. There are certain doubts that the Russian pharma will be able to hit the export target of 105 bn RUB by 2020, because, according to RNC Pharma, as of 2016, exports were evaluated at approx. 40 bn RUB (including the EAEU member states). Industry experts discussed potential future developments at a recent conference “Localization in pharmaceutical manufacturing”.

[PharmVestnik # 22, 04/07/2017, p. 1, cont’d p. 11]

FAS not to disclose reference drug price sources

The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) presented its opinion on the new VED pricing procedure. The regulatory agency disagreed with the MoH on a number of key issues. In particular, the FAS is against using state procurement prices in the drug pricing process as well as against restricting cost-effectiveness of Russian reference drugs. The agency proposes reducing administrative barriers, e.g. not to have pharmaceutical manufacturers file a lot of unrequired documents. The industry welcomes all these initiatives. However, the parties differ in certain approaches.

[PharmVestnik # 22, 04/07/2017, p. 2]

Bacteriophages have clinical potential given antibiotic resistance

The medical community sees the antibiotic resistance issue as highly challenging: over the past three years in Russia, the death rate associated with community-acquired pneumonia not curable with antibiotics available increased by 67%. In 29 EU countries, 25 thousand people die annually because of polyresistant bacteria. At the same time, no new antibacterial drug classes have been developed or released over the past 30+ years, whereas pathogenic microorganisms have already developed resistance to most of the existing antibiotics. In this context, medical and patient communities increasingly often look at bacteriophages that are killer viruses for specific infections.

[PharmVestnik # 22, 04/07/2017, p. 3]

Pharma market players and Moscow officials discussed...