Global pharma rush to invest in Russia stalled

The world’s leading pharmaceutical producers are in no hurry to implement their previously-announced plans and to establish production facilities in Russia, due to a number of problems which are thwarting their Russian expansion.

According to analysts at the Russian Medportal magazine, one of the country’s leading pharmaceutical and medicine on-line news sources, at present only those foreign pharmaceutical plants that were established quite a long time ago are operating in Russia. Among these are Germany’s Stada and Fresenius, French drug major Sanofi and independent Laboratoires Servier, Gedeon Richter (Hungary), KRKA (Slovenia) and Polpharma (Poland). The only foreign-owned plant, construction of which was just finished in 2011, is Switzerland-based Nycomed’s (now part of Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceuticals) facility located in Yaroslavl.

Since the beginning of the current year, several drugmakers announced their intention to start construction of Russian pharmaceutical manufacturing plants, including Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, Berlin-Chemie (a subsidiary of Italy’s Menarini group) and Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca. However their projects are far from completion. In addition, about 10 large domestic producers, among which are Akrihin, Geropharm and Petrovax, have also announced plans to establish new capacities in Russia.