Global drugmakers refusing to test new drugs in Russia

More and more global pharmaceutical companies are refusing to test new drugs in Russia. In the first five months, the number of approvals for clinical trials for drugmakers from the European Union and the USA in Russia has decreased by 18.5%, while for Russian manufacturers it grew by almost 90%, mainly due to generics, reports The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent.

In January-May 2022, the Russian Ministry of Health issued 365 permits to conduct clinical trials, which is 36.2% more than a year earlier. The number of permits issued to Russian companies increased by 86.8% to 213. Pharmaceutical manufacturers from Europe and the USA received 110 permits, which is 18.5% less than a year earlier.

Multinational pharmaceutical companies, including Roche (ROG: SIX), Novartis (NOVN: VX), Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK), AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV), Sanofi (Euronext: SAN), and others, announced in March that they were suspending the recruitment of participants in ongoing clinical trials and halting the launch of new ones due to the ongoing military actions of Russia in Ukraine. The American firm Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY), which handed over the Russian business to its partner in June, also stopped conduction clinical trials.