Payments of Western pharmaceutical companies belonging to the Association of International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (AIPM) to Russian doctors and industry associations may decrease by about 30% by the end of 2022, Kommersant writes with reference to Sergey Shulyak, DSM Group’s CEO.
Big pharma allocates funds to pay for consultations, hold conferences and reimburse expenses related to participation in them, as well as in the form of donations and grants. For manufacturers, this is also one of the ways to promote their medicines on the market.
According to Shulyak, the main reason for the reduction is a decrease in the activity of international pharmaceutical companies in the Russian market after the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine. Since the end of February, Bayer, Pfizer, MSD, and Novartis have announced the suspension of their investments in Russia, as well as of the launch of new projects and advertising campaigns; however, the supply of most of their drugs to the country continues.
By the end of 2022, the amount of funds allocated by foreign pharmaceutical companies to conduct new research and development in the Russian Federation will also decrease, as Svetlana Zavidova, the executive director of the Association of Clinical Trials Organizations (ACTO), told the publication. The American BMS, which left Russia, also stopped the research it was conducting.
In the first six months of the year, the Ministry of Health issued 111 permits for international multicenter trials in Russia, which is 27.5% decrease y-o-y. A survey conducted by ACTO in mid-July showed that 55 of the 78 previously announced trials have been suspended, and 18 will definitely not be conducted in the country. According to the calculations of the publication, in 2021 pharmaceutical companies allocated 8.37 billion rubles for such research, which is a 3.6% growth y-o-y.
Over the last year, big pharma allocated 19.3 billion rubles for payments to doctors, industry associations, and research, an increase of 22.6%, as the newspaper calculated based on reports of 47 AIPM member companies.