News Digest 03.05.2024 — 06.05.2024
Regulators
The drugs are promised to be designed. From 2025, the industry will have a specialized national project
The government plans to launch a separate national project in Russia to develop the industry for the production of medicines, medical equipment and medical products. Last week its development was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova. According to industry representatives, the creation of a national project will provide the industry with a larger volume of government funding, as well as the opportunity to plan business development for a longer period in predictable conditions.
In 2025, the government will launch a new national project in the Russian Federation, “New Health Saving Technologies.” Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova announced this last week during a meeting of the Ministry of Health at the international exhibition and forum “Russia”.
“The project “New Health Saving Technologies” will include areas for developing the production of the most popular drugs and medical products, work in this area has been launched, but it must be expanded,” she said. “We expect that by 2030, in at least 10% of cases, medical care will have to be provided using new medical technologies,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.
Source: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6665643
The United States imposed sanctions against two Russian distributors of medical products
The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has published a new sanctions list "for activities in a sector of the Russian Federation's economy intended to support Russia's military-industrial base." It included another 252 organizations and 29 individuals, including suppliers for the healthcare sector.
Among them:
- JSC “Biograd” is a distributor of reagents for clinical laboratory diagnostics and rapid tests for the diagnosis of HIV and hepatitis, syphilis, pneumococcus and other respiratory diseases. According to the company's website, it supplied products to Abbott, LumiraDx, NovaTec, Alere, Biogal, and Orgenics.
- Rau Pharm company is a distributor of medical equipment and products, laboratory and analytical equipment and reagents from foreign manufacturers. According to the company's website, it supplied products to Sigma, Thermo Fisher, Agilent Technologies, Pentax Medical, Ermis Medizintechnik, Portex, Braun Sharing Expertise.
In 2023, Japan introduced new sanctions against Russia - they affected medical and pharmaceutical products. In particular, the export of certain vaccines and diagnostic kits is now prohibited.
Sanctions are also being introduced against some Russian doctors - for example, the head of the National Medical Chamber Leonid Roshal was included in the EU sanctions list last year (sanctions were imposed against him as the co-chairman of the Central Headquarters of the All-Russian Popular Front (ONF).
Market news
Chelyabinsk OFAS fined medical equipment suppliers 36 million rubles for cartel
The Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (UFAS) for the Chelyabinsk region imposed fines on 11 companies totaling 36 million rubles. They were recognized as participants in the cartel at the auction for the supply of medical equipment, the department’s press service reported.
The Federal Antimonopoly Service is considering cases of bringing to administrative responsibility six more participants in the conspiracy. In total, violations of the law on protection of competition were found in the actions of 17 companies from Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, Kurgan, Orenburg, Yekaterinburg, Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Udmurt Republic. The total amount of initial contract prices exceeded 500 million rubles.
Legal entities in 2020-2021 participated in bidding for the supply of medical equipment, including X-ray systems, ventilators, and medical products. In the majority of purchases (46 out of 49), the customer was the Ministry of Health of the Chelyabinsk Region.
Companies used "carousel waltz" and "sole supplier" behavior models aimed at obtaining contracts at maximum prices. OFAS and law enforcement agencies established that bidders used a single infrastructure and identical design of the properties of application files; had long-term stable financial relationships under cash loan agreements and goods supply agreements; interacted when submitting commercial proposals, influencing the formation of the initial price of contracts.
A case of cartel conspiracy against 17 companies was initiated in January 2024, MV reported. In most procurements, cartel participants reduced the initial price of contracts by 2-4%.
Fines were imposed on Medfarmservice LLC, MC Nika LLC, Region-Service LLC, Rome 2020 LLC, Sib-APN LLC, MS LLC, MLT Service LLC, Medservice-Region CJSC ", LLC "Medproject-Zauralye", LLC "ORBiMED", LLC "IzhMedTech". In development by the Federal Antimonopoly Service: Gazneftesnab LLC, Ural Company LLC, TransMed LLC, FortMedTech LLC, Medical Technologies LLC, MTM LLC.
New details have appeared in the case of the speaker of the Nizhny Novgorod Duma about the medical equipment scam
The detention of the speaker of the Nizhny Novgorod Duma and the director of the Arzamas Instrument-Making Plant (APZ) Oleg Lavrichev occurred after a statement by one of the deputy directors of the plant, a former employee of the FSB, about bringing to criminal responsibility “unidentified persons” who purchased medical equipment at the expense of the APP. A representative of the plant considered that the purchase of a Planmed x-ray mammograph for 22.4 million rubles was “economically unjustified.” Lavrichev’s arrest became known at the end of April - he is accused of embezzlement and legalization of property obtained by criminal means (Article 160 and Article 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
An ophthalmological clinic will be built in Barnaul for 1 billion rubles
The Minister of Health of the Altai Territory, Dmitry Popov, announced plans to build an ophthalmological clinic in Barnaul, designed for 100 visits per shift. The cost of construction was estimated at 1 billion rubles. The funds are planned to be allocated from the regional budget.
The site for the construction of a medical facility is located in May 9 Passage. In 2024, it is planned to clear the territory and identify a contractor for the construction of the facility. According to Popov, the design documentation has already been developed.
As the head of the Altai Ministry of Health noted, residents of the region are now being treated at the regional ophthalmological hospital. More than 54 thousand local residents receive outpatient care there every year, and more than 13 thousand operations are performed. But, as Popov noted, the specified power is not enough.
The clinic building is planned to house an outpatient department for 100 visits per shift, an ophthalmological day hospital for 60 beds with treatment and diagnostic rooms, and an operating unit for two operating rooms. In the day hospital they intend to introduce same-day surgery or hospital-replacing technologies. The authorities believe that such a decision will increase the number of annual operations to 18 thousand.
In August 2022, the Barnaul City Hall announced the construction of a polyclinic building No. 9 in the Industrial district of the city. The work will be carried out according to the regional program for the modernization of primary healthcare. Construction was planned to begin in 2024. The project was estimated at 1.3 billion rubles.
The new building, according to the project, will house an X-ray department, a diagnostic service, an extended antenatal clinic, as well as general practitioner, emergency and preventive care departments. There will also be offices for doctors of narrow specialties, an MSCT office and a day hospital.
Puzzles of import substitution: in which areas Russian medical equipment has taken the lead
In 2023, government purchases of medical equipment decreased compared to the previous three years. This is explained by the cyclical nature of the supply of medical equipment to healthcare institutions: in certain two or three years, a massive replacement of outdated equipment is carried out, then there is a pause. The last such peak was in 2020-2022, according to an analysis of the Medical Bulletin newspaper.
How does import substitution work?
Large medical equipment has a warranty period of 8-10 years, medium - 5 years, so five- to 10-year procurement cycles are periodically repeated within the framework of national projects, federal and regional programs. According to the analytical company Headway, the volume of purchases of therapeutic and diagnostic equipment, as well as irradiation equipment* over the past three years amounted to an average of 143 billion rubles. in, and in 2023 they decreased to 129.4 billion rubles.
Due to the cyclical nature of procurement, the transition to domestic medical equipment, if available, will not be immediate. Thanks to the rules of “second wheel” (Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 102 of 02/05/2015) and “third wheel” (Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 878 of 10/07/2019), the share of imported mammography devices in the total amount of purchases of this type, for example, decreased from 42% in 2020 to 14% in 2021 and to 12.8% in 2022). The situation is similar with the share in kind.
The largest foreign supplier of mammographs in 2020-2023 was the South Korean Genoray. Among the Russian companies, the leader was JSC Medical Technologies Ltd (MTL), which cooperates with GE Healthcare, including in the field of localization of production in Russia.
RNC Pharma presented sales statistics of test strips for glucometers
Sales of test strips for glucometers in 2023 increased in volume terms by 4.3%, but decreased in ruble equivalent by 0.4%. According to RNC Pharma, this is due to changes in packaging fractions and low inflation rates in this category. At the same time, sales volume through the online channel doubled - both in physical units and in monetary terms.
Other
MIPT student has developed an “eternal” power source for a pacemaker
A student at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), Ekaterina Vakhnitskaya, has developed a power source for heart implants that does not require replacement after a few years. As the MIPT press service reported, the biofuel cell works using glucose from the human body as fuel.
“A master’s student at the Kurchatov School of Natural Sciences, Plasma and Nuclear Technologies has developed an enzymatic biofuel cell for implantable medical devices. The proposed model does not require replacement, unlike lithium-ion batteries, which must be rotated every 5-10 years,” the press noted. service.
An enzymatic biofuel cell (BFC), as scientists explained, is a device that converts chemical energy into electrical energy using biological catalysts. It consists of an electrolyte, an anode and a cathode. The formation of electrons at the anode occurs in this case due to the oxidation of glucose contained in the body.
Source: https://nauka.tass.ru/nauka/20626891
Russian scientists have invented a prototype of a polymer patch to combat tumor relapses
Specialists from the Russian University MISIS presented an innovative prototype of a polymer patch, which is designed to prevent the reappearance of malignant tumors after their removal.
The scaffold is placed at the site of the removed tumor, where it controls the gradual release of chemotherapy drugs over the course of a year, allowing the drug to precisely reach the remaining tumor cells. This approach increases the effectiveness of postoperative chemotherapy and reduces the negative side effects of treatment. In addition, the biopolymer from which the patch is made safely dissolves in the body after two to three years.
Scientists from MISIS University emphasize that the developed patch not only maximizes the effectiveness of chemotherapy, but also ensures the safe and effective distribution of drugs in the body, preventing possible complications and repeated operations.
Source: https://farmedinstvo.info/news/farmatsevtika-i-nauka/rossiyskie-uchenye-izobreli-pr/
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