Business news

MINSK, 29 March (BelTA) – Plans have been made to set up centers for developing personified vaccines in Belarus and Saint Petersburg, BelTA learned from Aleksei Sychev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Belarusian pharmaceutical company NatiVita.

Future R&D cooperation between NatiVita and the Russian biotechnology company Biocad was discussed as Prime Minister of Belarus Andrei Kobyakov visited Saint Petersburg where the tenth session of the Belarus-Saint Petersburg Business Cooperation Council took place. Cooperation between NatiVita and Biocad will proceed within the framework of the research program on exploring personified healthcare technologies, the so-called cell technologies.

Aleksei Sychev said: “Our initiative was backed by the Saint Petersburg governor and our prime minister as well as the state secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia. We are going to put together the paperwork on preparing a Union State program to finance the establishment of two centers — in Belarus and Saint Petersburg.” The R&D centers will use cell technologies to develop personified vaccines and treatment solutions, primarily solutions to treat oncological diseases and other socially significant diseases.

According to Belarusian First Deputy Healthcare Minister Dmitry Pinevich, Belarus is now switching to personified treatment. Medications designed to treat concrete diseases in a specific patient taking into account the patient’s individual parameters come in use. These technologies are exceedingly expensive yet their cost will drop thanks to R&D efforts. Specialists working on new medications, science, and practical healthcare will work towards this goal.

An international science and practice conference on pharmacoeconomics of socially significant diseases took place in Minsk on 29 March. It gathered over 140 leading specialists in the sphere of therapeutics, clinical pharmacology, pharmacoeconomics, and other areas. Participants of the conference were made familiar with the international experience of organizing a system to evaluate medical technologies and discussed the possibility of applying this experience in Belarus. Belarusian specialists presented reviews and the national experience of introducing targeted therapy in gastroenterology, oncology, endocrinology, and rheumatology. Regulatory control over the registration of orphan drugs and biotechnology medications in line with Eurasian Economic Union rules was discussed.