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\t\t\t\tRussia’s Central Bank Has Lost What Remained of Its Independence
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Imported medicines are increasingly disappearing, sometimes temporarily, sometimes for good. Diabetes drugs, epilepsy drugs, and many others are vanishing from shelves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Health Ministry\u2019s response is always the same: Russia has domestic equivalents. The problem is that chronic illnesses like diabetes or epilepsy often require trying different drugs to find what works best. Every person\u2019s body reacts differently; a drug may trigger severe side effects not just from the active ingredient but from fillers, binders, or dyes.<\/p>\n
The Health Ministry\u2019s logic is simple: if the active substance treats the disease, take it and stop complaining.<\/p>\n
The issue that the Health Ministry and Russian pharma lobbyists call \u201cforeign dominance<\/a>\u201d came up again at the Eastern Economic Forum. Dmitry Kudlai, vice president of the company Generium, complained that drugs made in \u201cunfriendly countries\u201d often outsell Russian ones despite sharing \u201cthe same indications.\u201d Deputy Health Minister Viktor Fisenko promised to \u201cdo everything necessary to ensure our resources stay inside the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Kudlai was unhappy that his company\u2019s Glurazym sells worse than the Irish-made Vpriv. Both treat Gaucher\u2019s disease, but they use different active ingredients. Kudlai says that doesn\u2019t matter\u2014and the ministry agrees.<\/p>\n The stakes are high: the state\u2019s fixed purchase price for Glurazym<\/a> (sold only through government procurement) is 59,698 rubles ($736.34) before VAT. If it doesn\u2019t work well? You can buy Vpriv<\/a> in a pharmacy for 76,315 rubles ($943.29) \u2014 if you can find it. Gaucher\u2019s disease affects roughly one person in half a million. In the first half of 2025, state agencies spent about 1.2 billion rubles ($14.83 million) on Vpriv, while Glurazym sales totaled 1.06 billion rubles in seven months. So if the Irish drug were banned, Generium\u2019s revenue would more than double.<\/p>\n And indeed, the ban is no longer hypothetical. Russia has implemented the \u201csecond is superfluous<\/a>\u201d rule for government drug tenders: if at least one Russian manufacturer participates, foreign companies are automatically excluded. As of January 2025, the rule covers \u201cvital and essential\u201d drugs; from 2026, it will extend to all \u201cstrategically significant<\/a>\u201d ones \u2014 meaning whatever the government says it is.<\/p>\n Money is the true driving force behind all this patriotic talk about \u201cdomestic pharmaceuticals.\u201d Let\u2019s go back to Glurazymand Vpriv. Add 20% VAT to Glurazym\u2019s state purchase price, and you get over 71,600 rubles ($885.10) per vial\u2014meaning the Irish drug, even after markups, actually costs less than the Russian equivalent. That\u2019s not even touching on differences in efficacy or quality. Logically, regional governments would prefer the cheaper option. But it\u2019s easier for domestic firms to lobby \u201cnational interests\u201d than to lower prices.<\/p>\n Regional officials are already grumbling: the drugs are too expensive and budgets are too tight. In Sverdlovsk Oblast, authorities even proposed offloading the burden of buying imported drugs onto charities. Local budgets, they say, should be spent on Russian-made medicine. As Duma deputy Aleksandr Petrov grandly put it, \u201cThere is a drop of our soldiers\u2019 blood on every package of medicine from unfriendly countries.\u201d<\/p>\n The lofty rhetoric makes more sense once you learn that Petrov also founded Medsintez<\/a>, a plant producing genetically engineered insulin. I find it hard to stay neutral here: a diabetic friend of mine lost both legs after being forced to switch to Russian insulin.<\/p>\n \t\topinion \t\t\t\tPutin Can’t Hide Russia’s Gasoline Crisis Take this story of bureaucratic madness. In Krasnodar Krai, a clinic held a tender for syringes. One requirement was a plastic needle cap \u2014 simple sleeves that prevent accidental scratches and help maintain sterility. Pretty basic, right?<\/p>\n Not according to the regional branch of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), which ruled that the clinic had violated the law because Russian syringe manufacturers don\u2019t make such caps. Therefore, said FAS, the clinic had discriminated against domestic producers. It concluded that \u201call medical syringes registered in Russia are high-quality, effective and safe, and there are no regulatory requirements to use syringes with protective mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n The clinic was fined and told not to \u201cshow off.\u201d You might think this was local overreach. But no: the Orenburg and Leningrad regional FAS offices have already adopted the same position. Soon, syringes across Russia will end up without caps while the country faces a real HIV epidemic<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can still bring your own syringe. But what about the Industry and Trade Ministry\u2019s plan<\/a> to restrict imports of stents and catheters for state hospitals? A stent \u2014 used in emergency heart surgeries to reopen blocked arteries \u2014 often makes the difference between life and death. From July 2026, emergency operations with imported stents will no longer be possible in public hospitals. In private clinics, perhaps, but the stent alone will cost around $4,000.<\/p>\n What if you can\u2019t afford one? Pray that domestic manufacturers, giddy with joy, remember to wash their hands.<\/p>\n Some might say that the government is protecting domestic pharma to foster innovation. It may be painful now. But someday, maybe we\u2019ll have our own Pfizer or Novo Nordisk.<\/p>\n Sorry to disappoint: even if Russia banned all foreign medicines tomorrow, it would never produce its own Pfizer. Not just because such companies are the tip of an iceberg resting on thousands of small research labs and global investors, but because Russian pharma giants don\u2019t need any of that to stay profitable.<\/p>\n They operate by buying active ingredients \u2014 usually for drugs whose patents have expired \u2014 from India, China, or occasionally Germany. They then mix in fillers, compress tablets, bottle solutions, slap on (often imported) packaging, and sell. Done.<\/p>\n Except not quite \u2014 because they still manage to mess even that up. Some batches contain too little of the active substance; others are improperly processed. According to RNC Pharma, 80\u201385% <\/a>of Russian drugs are made from imported active ingredients. The rest are those same fuflomycins \u2014 drugs unrecognized anywhere else in the world (except maybe by \u201cbrotherly\u201d Venezuela or North Korea). Counterfeit products<\/a> also find their way into pharmacies.<\/p>\n Prices are higher than for imports, profits are enormous and it\u2019s far easier to lobby for import bans than to build real labs or train scientists. Occasionally, there are supply chain hiccups: when an imported ingredient shipment fails to arrive, even basic antibiotics vanish \u2014 like Amoxiclav<\/a> or the cancer drug Tamoxifen<\/a>.<\/p>\n But so what? You can always buy Kagocel, birch fungus tincture, or plantain extract \u2014 now available in capsules! Take your pick. Just don\u2019t forget your syringe. Without the unpatriotic cap, of course.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe views expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the position of The Moscow Times.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n A Message from The Moscow Times:<\/p>\n Dear readers,<\/p>\n We are facing unprecedented challenges. 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