Novartis breaks ground on $500m Russian facility
pharmafile | June 21, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â Novartis, Russia, pharma manufacturing newsÂ
Novartis has started construction of its new pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The company has broken ground on the greenfield site in the Novoorlovskaya Special Economic Zone (SEZ), which forms the centrepiece of Novartis’ $500 million five-year investment into Russia announced last December.
In a statement, Novartis said the investment was aimed at boosting “local manufacturing, R&D collaborations and public health development” in Russia.
Having local medicines manufacturing capacity is increasingly important in Russia as the country has implemented measures to reduce its reliance on imported drugs from a current level of over 80%.
One of the measures outlined in Russia’s Pharma 2020 document released in 2009 is a plan to give preference to domestically-made medicines over imports in the national reimbursement system, although details of how this will occur in practice have yet to be fleshed out.
Novartis held a groundbreaking ceremony at the site last week which was attended by Russia Minister for Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina, Novartis chief executive Joseph Jimenez and Valentina Matvienko, the governor of St. Petersburg.
The plant is scheduled for completion in 2014 and will employ more than 350 people. Once fully operational it will have the capacity to manufacture approximately 1.5 billion units of medicines a year, increasing Novartis’ ability to deliver “both innovative pharmaceuticals and high-quality generics to Russian patients”.
Most other leading pharmaceutical manufacturers are establishing or expanding local production capacity in Russia, as part of a general trend towards offsetting the impact of lost patent protection on current brands with increased sales in emerging markets.
Earlier this year, AstraZeneca began construction of a $150 million pharma manufacturing facility in the Kaluga region while GlaxoSmithKline set up a joint venture to make vaccine products.
Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk has announced a $100 million investment in an insulin plant, Sanofi-Aventis has bought a controlling stake in another local insulin plant and Nycomed’s Russian plans involve building a $90 million liquid sterile and solid oral dosage form facility.
Phil Taylor
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