An investment project to build a plant for the production of pharmaceuticals from plasma with foreign direct investment has been launched. An investor is a private Dutch company.
For the first time in the history of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation in 2016-2017, industrial processing of human blood plasma and the production of essential drugs for the treatment of hemophilia, immunodeficiency states, for plasma substitution will be mastered at Belarusian-Dutch joint venture Pharmland.
Today, in Belarus and Russia, before the launch of a new production in the segment of medicines from blood, dependence on imports is more than 90% and the depth of plasma processing at blood transfusion stations is about 20%. The new production will use blood plasma from donors of Belarus and Russia, which is a guarantee of quality and viral safety of plasma medicines. According to the investment agreement with the Government of the Republic of Belarus, JV Pharmland put the plant into operation in December 2015. Technology partner – Italian biopharmaceutical company Kedrion S.p.A. – is one of the largest plasma processors in the world using the most modern technologies.
The plant will be launched in 2018 and be able to process 150 tonnes of plasma per year with a further increase to 450 tonnes. In 2017, the validation of the company will be completed; it will start commercial production of pharmaceuticals in 2018. At this stage, the production will fully cover the need of the health care system of Belarus for blood products; subsequently it will partially cover Russia’s needs as well.
In order to increase the volume of production and placing on the market of the Russian Federation and the EEA countries, an agreement on establishing a joint venture for the processing of blood plasma in Belarus was signed. The agreement was signed by Director General of National Immunobiological Company Nikolay Semenov and Director General of JV Pharmland Ivan Logovoy during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2016 in St. Petersburg. The Russian company will invest about 1.7 billion rubles in the project.
Background information
Belarusian-Dutch joint venture Pharmland LLC was organized in February 1998. It is one of the first successful projects in the field of drug manufacturing in the Republic of Belarus with Dutch investment. The underlying trend was the production of infusion solutions in PVC containers that was the first in the CIS countries. The company manufactures products for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, as well as various antibiotics, painkillers and anti-fungal medications, enteral nutrition and test kits for the diagnosis of infectious and oncological diseases.
A new investment facility was commissioned on 18 December 2015 – the factory for the production of drugs based on blood plasma. The volume of investments amounted to 23 million US dollars. Farmland plans to master the production of albumin, immunoglobulins, coagulation, blood coagulation factors VIII and IX. High-level processing of plasma is to be carried out using the most modern technology for obtaining highly purified proteins using ultracentrifugation, ultrafiltration and chromatographic techniques.