March 1, 2023 The FAS of Russia will consider the complaint of AO Biocad against the actions of the Department of Moscow City Competition Policy in determining the winner of the offset contract.
R-Pharm was declared the winner, as it had reduced the initial maximum contract price from 4.2 billion rubles to almost 1.1 billion rubles. According to the terms of the contract, the supplier/investor has to localize the production of drugs in the city within two to four years, including pembrolizumab, an antitumor drug in the form of a concentrate for solution for infusion. The supply of pembrolizumab was the subject of a complaint filed by AO Biocad against the actions of the public customer.
According to a complaint filed by AO Biocad, AO R-Pharm “cannot provide a proper justification for reducing the contract price by almost 3/4 of the value of the initial (maximum) contract price, and the uninterrupted supply of the drugs involved in the disputed procurement procedure cannot be guaranteed with a sufficient degree of reliability.”
In particular, AO Biocad draws attention to the fact that according to the state register of medicines, there are only two medicines on the Russian market containing INN Pembrolizumab. They are Keytruda (registration certificate holder: MSD Pharmaceuticals) and Pembroria (holder of the registration certificate: AO Biocad).
The complaint emphasizes that AO Biocad is also a manufacturer and developer of Pembroria, and that the entire cycle of its production is carried out in the Russian Federation. Keytruda is produced outside of Russia and the importer to the Russian Federation is AO R-Pharm.
AO Biocad refers to the geopolitical situation. “It is impossible to ignore the fact that in the current conditions, no one can actually guarantee uninterrupted supplies of goods produced outside the Russian Federation, in the so-called “unfriendly states”, which include the United States,” the complaint emphasizes. According to AO Biocad, AO R-Pharm cannot ensure its compliance, as the winner of the procurement procedure, with the requirements of Article 37 of the Law on the Contract System, which, in turn, is an obstacle to the conclusion of the contract.