Russia postpones compulsory licensing of imported drugs until December

The Russian government has decided to postpone the introduction of a controversial scheme for the compulsory licensing of drugs imported into Russia, as proposed by some local drugmakers, reports The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent.

According to Alia Samigullina, an official spokesman of Arkady Dvorkovich, (Russia’s first deputy prime-minister, who oversees the development of pharmaceutical industry in the Russian government), a significant part of imported drugs with unexpired periods of patent protection is already produced within the territory of Russia, so there is a no need for the introduction of compulsory licensing scheme.

The initiative of compulsory licensing of drugs in Russia was for the first time put forward by Vikram Singh Puniya, head of Pharmasyntez, one of Russia’s leading drugmakers. According to him, such scheme is widely used in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) markets, in particular India and Brazil, and could be useful for Russia, which in recent years has faced with a shortage of some vital drugs.