The second ‘Ensuring Drug Security’ Russian Pharmaceutical Forum took place on the opening day of the 25thSt. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The event was organized by the Roscongress Foundation with the support of the Russian Ministry of Health and the Subcommittee on Drug Circulation and the Development of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Industry of the State Duma’s Committee on Health Protection. The forum is held annually and is a leading platform for discussions about the business agenda of the pharmaceutical industry.
The plenary session ‘Drug Security: Humanity at the Heart of Collaboration’ was attended by: Mikhail Murashko, Minister of Health of the Russian Federation; Ikhtiyar Aslanov, Head of the Regional Delegation for the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus at the International Committee of the Red Cross; Tadzio Schilling, CEO of the Association of European Businesses (АЕВ); Veronika Skvortsova, Director of the Russian Federal Medical-Biological Agency; Yevgeny Shlyakhto, Director General of the Almazov National Medical Research Centre and President of the Russian Society of Cardiology; Mariangela Batista Galvao Simao, Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products at the World Health Organization; Alla Samoylova, Director of the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare; and Alexander Petrov, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Drug Circulation and the Development of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Industry of the State Duma’s Committee on Health Protection.
For Russia, drug security is currently a top priority in the healthcare sector and a precondition for the country to reach an entirely new level given the realities of the current challenges. The government’s immediate agenda includes maintaining the availability of medicines, ensuring the financial stability and technological independence of pharmaceutical industries, and fulfilling state guarantees for the provision of drugs to society. In a country with stable drug security, each citizen must be sure that his/her life and health are reliably protected. Such confidence is primarily manifested in the trust of society and people’s approval of the actions of state institutions. Today, it is not only crucial to unite the key regulators, the expert community, and society and establish the openness and transparency of various processes, but also to build a space for understanding and cooperation. People’s health and lives are a primary focus of the laws of humanism and go beyond political boundaries.
Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko noted that the Russian pharmaceutical industry is actively developing and that the country is already producing domestic substances that are not inferior in quality to imported ones: “Today, pharmaceutical production continues to be localized, and scientific expertise is increasing. We must move towards ensuring full localization, while at the same time forming new markets. Once we reach full capacity, our production facilities will not only be able to provide for our citizens, but also cover the demand of foreign countries. There is potential for this. An example of this is the industry’s experience during the pandemic, when Russia exported both domestically produced vaccines and medicines, making up for the shortage of drugs in a number of countries.”
During the session, experts discussed what solutions will get the healthcare and medical supply industry out from the pressure of sanctions, what strategies for the import independence of the pharmaceutical industry are protecting the government’s interests, how the state and society can build a dialogue towards trust and cooperation, and what is the best way to ensure national drug security and guarantee that Russian citizens regularly have high-quality and effective drugs available to them.
The partners of the ‘Ensuring Drug Security’ Russian Pharmaceutical Forum are the Promomed Group, Bristol Myers Squibb, and the Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of the Eurasian Economic Union.
The general media partners of the Forum are the Doctor TV channel, Pharmaceutical Bulletin, and Medvestnik. The media partners are Russia-1, RBC, the Remedium Group, GxP news, Healthcare of Russia, Russian Doctor Publishing House, and PharmMedProm.
Official website of the event: pharmforum.org.
