Big Pharma's control over the Russian state drug procurement tenders market slipping away, says Biocad

Russian pharmaceutical companies are actively squeezing out foreign therapeutic manufacturers from the government tenders, according to leading Russian biotech firm Biocad.

The patients' support state program allocates the highest budget for rituximab, a drug used in the treatment of hematological cancers. In 2013, $217 million were appropriated from the federal budget for this drug alone. This year, for the first time, Russian biosimilar drug AcellBia will be supplied under this program.

For years, all income from sales of rituximab in Russia was booked by the sole producer of the drug, the Swiss company Roche (ROG: SIX). Earlier this year, Biocad entered the Russian market with AcellBia, biosimilar of Roche's MabThera/Rituxan (rituximab), and as a result the situation has drastically changed (The Pharma Letter May 15). The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation will purchase rituximab produced by a Russian company for patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.