Business news

MINSK, 24 August (BelTA) – The Belarusian-Indian pharmaceutical enterprise JivaPharm will be built in Kolyadichi, BelTA learned from the Meditsinsky Vestnik newspaper of the Belarusian Healthcare Ministry.

The enterprise will occupy 4.63ha. The construction process will be split into three stages. During the first stage a three-storey building will be erected to make antiretroviral medications to treat people suffering from AIDS, hepatitis B, and other diseases the Healthcare Ministry closely monitors. According to Yelena Yermukhometova, chief project engineer at the civil engineering design company OOO Arkhitekturnoye Atelye, the building will house manufacturing facilities and warehouses, a modern lab to design new products, and a proprietary quality control division. The building has been designed bearing in mind the logical sequence of pharmaceutical operations and the cleanliness requirements in order to rule out the traversal of human and material traffic. This part of the enterprise is supposed to start working in 2017-2018.

In the next phase the enterprise will start making medications for general therapeutic purposes and for treating oncological pathologies. A logistics hub will be set up.

The products will be compliant with GMP requirements. The medications to be made have no Belarus-made analogues and are now part of the government import substitution program. The medications have already roused interest in healthcare specialists from CIS and non-CIS states, Africa and Latin America.

Once the enterprise is fully operational, it is supposed to make 22.5 million pills of antiretroviral medications, 11 million pills for general therapeutic purposes, and 800,000 capsules per annum. Apart from commercial value the project offers social one: medications for treating hepatitis and oncological diseases will become more affordable. The cost of medications made by JivaPharm will be 5-7 times below the market prices.

Chairman of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich noted that a package of documents on creating a common market of medications in the Eurasian Economic Union had been signed recently. It is good news for investors and Belarusian manufacturers since they will be able to sell their products in the Eurasian Economic Union using simplified schemes.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of India to Belarus Pankaj Saxena underlined that pharmaceutics is an important industry both for India and Belarus. Belarusian and Indian companies are intent on working together to make high-quality inexpensive medications. The enterprise to be built in Kolyadichi will open up new opportunities. It is possible that Indian private sector may invest not only in pharmaceutics but other industries, too.

Other pharmaceutical factories will be built with India’s assistance in Belarus soon. A facility to make medications will be commissioned in Beshenkovichi, Vitebsk Oblast this year. A project to set up a joint venture in Skidel, Grodno Oblast is being evaluated by experts. Plans to set up another factory in Nesvizh, Minsk Oblast have been mentioned.