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R-Pharm plans to dominate in public procurements of anti-HIV and hepatitis drugs in Russia, the overall annual value of which is estimated at 20 billion roubles (~$300 million), according to recent statements of some senior officials of the Russian Ministry of Health and sources of the company, The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent reports.
Several days ago the company completed registration of its anti-HIV drug under the Efavirenz-TL brand, and will probably put it up for state tenders already in 2019. It is planned the drug will be produced at the company’s plant in Khimki in the Moscow region.
In the meantime, R-Pharm is not the only Russian pharmaceutical company that will produce efavirenz, the active ingredient of Bristol-Myers Squibbs (NYSE: BMY) Sustiva. Currently analogues of the drug are produced by India’s Hetero Labs, as well as the local unit of US pharma giant Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) and Russian firm Pharmsintez.
Procurement contracts in 2017
As for state purchases, the Russian government currently conducts procurements of efavirenz. In 2017, the Ministry of Health secured six contracts for the supply of this drug for a total of 1.2 billion roubles. Since the beginning of the current year, five contracts worth 1.4 billion roubles were signed with Hetero Labs and Pharmsintez.
Efavirenz became the third most expensive anti-HIV drug, which was registered by R-Pharm this year. Earlier this year, it completed registration of an analogue of darunavir, (Johnson & Johnson’s Prezista), which is also an HIV treatment, the value of which federal procurements in 2017 was 2.5 billion roubles.
In 2016, the drug was the subject of a patent dispute between Drug Technology and Janssen Pharmaceuticals (part of J&J), which owns the rights for the original drug.
In addition, in 2018, R-Pharm registered an analogue of atazanavir, which is produced by Bristol-Myers Squibb. In 2017 the value of state purchases of the drug amounted to 2.3 billion roubles, and R-Pharm became the winner of all of these auctions.
In addition to anti-HIV drugs, currently R-Pharm is actively involved in the production of drugs against hepatitis B and C.
In recent years, the company has launched contract manufacturing of some of original drugs of global majors, among which are Viekira Pak (ombitasvir, paritaprevir, and ritonavir, fromAbbVie), Daklinza (daclatasvir fromB-MS) and some others.
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