Nature Medicine
May 2011, Volume 17 No 5
http://www.nature.com/nm/index.html

News
Russia pledges $4 billion for Pharma-2020 plan – p517
Gary Peach
doi:10.1038/nm0511-517

Russia’s biomedical industry is woefully underdeveloped, accounting for only 0.2% of the world market. But plans are afoot to change that. Speaking at the opening of a new birth center in Ryazan on 11 March, for example, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated that the government wants to boost Russia’s presence on the world biopharma stage to 3–5% in the next decade. And he emphasized that the country already possesses the necessary academic and research institutions to achieve that. “We need to come up with measures to stimulate demand for Russia-made biotechnological products and remove barriers that often prevent businesses from working,” he said.

To that end, Russian leaders announced in March that they have approved 120 billion rubles ($4 billion) for a strategic investment program aimed at developing the country’s massively import-dependent pharmaceutical and medical supplies industries.

Dubbed Pharma-2020, the program—which was adopted two years ago although financing was only approved by the government last month—will attempt to boost output of local medicines, in gross sales terms, from nearly 25% last year to 50% by 2020. In addition, the program calls for ensuring that 90% of vital medicines are domestically produced, retooling some 160 companies to good manufacturing practice standards, establishing ten research and development centers that will focus on creating innovative products and boosting exports to $100 million.

Like nearly all of Russia’s state-driven initiatives, Pharma-2020 sets seemingly unattainable targets. Still, some insiders believe it is realistic. “Everyone acknowledges that it’s an ambitious program, but, considering the amount of construction work going on right now, and the state funds being allocated, then this task is manageable,” says Nikolai Bespalov, an analyst at Pharmexpert, a Moscow-based market research center.

Others have reservations. “I perceive the program as a document and not much more.      The strategy is written, the concept approved, but there are more acute problems that could be solved today without strategies and concepts, such as the low level of domestic products in state purchases,” says Viktor Dmitriev, director of the Association of Russian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, based in Moscow.