Russian pharmaceutical producers in Azerbejdzan

An international forum-exhibition “Russia- Azerbejdzan: pharmaceutical and medical industry today and tomorrow” have opened in Baku. During the exhibition participants have discussed issues of trade relations.

               Representatives of industry’s ministers and agencies, business community and professional associations of Azerbejdzan and Russia participated in the event. The Russian mission was made up with  a Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Sergey Tcyb, Director of department of drug provision and drug circulation of the Health Ministry, Elena Maximkina, Director General of the Association of the Russian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, Victor Dmitriev, as well as Russian pharmaceutical producers. The exhibition had 28 Russian pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies.

                              The participants met with Deputy Minister of Health of Azerbejdzan, Elseyar Agaev, Deputy Minister of Economics and Industry, Niyazi Safarov, representatives of the Azerbejdzan federal and business community. The meeting was also attended by the Russia’s Ambassador, Vladimir Dorokhin, and Russia’s trade representative, Eldar Tlyabichev.

               The key topics of the meeting were legal regulation of medicines and medical equipment, Russia’s export of medicines, and design of a mutual production of medicines in Azerbejdzan.

               The participant discussed opportunities to invest in Azerbejdzan’s pharmaceutical industry, which is 98% dependent on import. It is possible to create production of anesthetics in the country. Azerbejdzan has a developed chemical industry, which is also a positive factor for investors. An interesting proposal came from a head of the Sumgait chemical industrial park, Zaur Mamedov.

               Azerbejdzan is already negotiating with both 100% Russian companies and those that transnational companies that have localized their production in Russia. The participants noted the importance to reduce administrative limitations for pharmaceutical companies, as well a to simplify medical registration process for those medicines that are produced and registered in Russia. The participants also noted the positive results of the strategy “PHARMA 2020” which helped bring investors and produce world- class quality medicines.

               “The experience that we gained for the last few years is full of victories and fails, but we learn from our failures. One of the main outcomes is that the success of a project of such programs depends on the balance of interests of producers, regulators and patients. Once one link of the chain is missing, the whole initiative is being delayed. Therefore, we are interested in the market of Azerbejdzan, and we are ready to cooperate. We condor investments, but it would be only possible with mutual effort,” said ARPM Director General, Victor Dmitriev. He also noted the importance to fix methods of price regulation is the Azerbejdzan pharm market, which discourages Russian investors.

               During the presentation of Russian companies Deputy Minister of Health of Belarus, Valery Shevchuk spoke about the positive cooperation with the Russian company “R-Pharm”. The main are of cooperation was import substitution and mutual production, and creation of production chains within the Union State. The participant agreed that such experience could be repeated with Azerbejdzan.

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