Recently it became known that Indian businessman Vikram Punia, the head of the Pharmasyntez Group of Companies and a pharmaceutical plant in St. Petersburg, received a preferential billion-dollar loan for the construction of a new site. This news caused a reaction in profile circles from indignation to irony, given the ambiguous reputation of the entrepreneur and even the outward resemblance to Ostap Bender.
The only plant in European Russia
The Pharmasyntez company was founded by a native of India, now a citizen of the Russian Federation, Vikram Punia in 1997, he is its permanent CEO and co-owner. The company is focused on the development and production of drugs for the treatment of socially significant diseases such as oncology, covid, tuberculosis, hepatitis, HIV and others. The volume of production is about 70 million packages per year for 250 types of drugs. In 2020, Pharmasyntez took 5th place in the Forbes ranking of the 20 Best Pharmaceutical Companies in Russia.
At the moment, the group of companies in Russia has five factories – in Irkutsk, Ussuriysk, Bratsk, Tyumen, and the company in St. Petersburg is called Pharmasyntez-Nord JSC, it started operating in 2017. As you can see, this is the only GC plant located in the European part of Russia. Nord operates in the Novoorlovskaya special economic zone between St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, and specializes in the production of cancer drugs. The volume of investments in the first site amounted to 2.5 billion rubles. Even then, at its opening six years ago, Vikram Punia noted that within the framework of this project, it is planned to build four enterprises in St. Petersburg, that is, four production sites.
Use someone else’s designs
Vikram Singh Punia, together with his wife Irina, the founder of 11 companies in Russia, has an ambiguous reputation in the core market. Not to say scandalous. Some media outlets directly indicate that his business take-off in Russian pharmaceuticals may be associated with Tatyana Golikova, who was the Minister of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation from 2007 to 2012, and later began to oversee social issues already as the first deputy chairman of the Russian government. However, there are no facts about this, only rumors and assumptions.
But experts express doubts about the quality of individual drugs from Pharmasyntez. So, some phthisiatricians criticize the drug for tuberculosis “Perkhlozon” for the high cost and side effects. By the way, on the packaging of “Perchlozone” there is an inscription in small letters: “The mechanism of action of the drug is not completely clear.” Doesn’t sound too optimistic for a patient, does it? Such doubts with specific facts of their uselessness or “side effects” apply to many drugs. Yes, most of the drugs from Pharmasyntez are generics, that is, analogues of well-known patented drugs. In general, the company is constantly suing someone about licenses and patents. For example, Pharmsintez once registered an analogue of an anti-HIV drug, rilpivirine, the patent for which belongs to the Janssen company, which caused a loud scandal on the market. After all, you can use the drug only after the expiration of the patent, and it expires only in 2027.
There were also proceedings with similar introductory conflicts with companies from different countries – Gilead Sciences, Tuteur SACIFIA MSD. To put it simply, Vikram Singh Puria and his specialists, apparently, use other people’s developments, without spending money on expensive drug trials, buy generics in India, where they are inexpensive, and sell them at a premium in Russia, where for some reason For some reason, they turn a blind eye to the licensing of these drugs and, in general, to the scandalous reputation of a businessman. Although in 2018 the investigative department of the Investigative Committee for the Irkutsk region opened a criminal case on tax evasion in the amount of 190 million rubles against Vikram Punia. According to Journalist Control, the investigation suspected that “representatives of Pharmasyntez entered into contracts for the purchase of raw materials from foreign suppliers through offshore intermediary firms. However, these contractors did not actually deliver anything. In addition, the company’s executives are accused of making a deal under which Region StroyService was a counterparty of Pharmasyntez. However, in reality, this whole operation pursued only one goal – to evade taxes. However, this criminal case somehow strangely hung in time – there is no fresh information on it, maybe the investigators do not show half of the work?
Of course, many in the profile market call an Indian with a Russian passport Vikram Puria “Ostap Bender” of Russian pharmaceuticals – “he should even go to Bollywood now!”. There is also an outward resemblance of a businessman with Archil Gomiashvili, who played Ostap Ibragimovich in 12 Chairs. Puria is always smartly dressed, invariably smiles, easily behaves with officials of the highest level, speaks good and correct words in interviews, cares for domestic pharmacology and does her best to help seriously ill people. An almost radiant image. For some, this causes irony or sarcasm, given the character’s passion for expensive cars, but many people on the network are frankly outraged, especially relatives of seriously ill patients who were not relieved of their suffering by drugs from Pharmasyntez. First of all, they are outraged by the fact that the Indian businessman has constant support from the state in all his commercial endeavors, and medicines at fabulous prices do not help many.
Nevertheless, on March 30, 2023, Pharmasyntez-Nord opened the launch of the second stage of the plant in St. Petersburg. Investments amounted to 5 billion rubles, of which 1 billion was provided by the Industrial Development Fund in the form of soft loans, which again caused a flurry of questions and suspicions, because the amount is more than solid.
“Thanks to the launch of the second stage, Pharmasyntez will expand the range of its main products and will produce anticancer drugs, insulins, as well as the Sputnik Light vaccine,” the company said. Vikram Punia also said that the Group plans to build the third production line by 2026: “Its area will be 15 thousand m2, the volume of investments will be about 6 billion rubles. The range of products that the third site will produce has not yet been determined. The plant is by far the largest in the country for the production of anticancer drugs. In terms of production, more than 100 items. This project will cover most of the country’s needs for these drugs.”
By the way
The governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov noted at the opening: “The creation of such a plant means technological independence from the West.”
… It is clear that within the framework of import substitution on all fronts, the drug market has become a testing ground where it will be clearly and quickly seen whether it will succeed or not. “The state is ready to invest money and is already investing huge amounts in pharmacology,” says a source for the Our Version correspondent at the Russian Center for Radiology and Surgical Technologies. Academician A. M. Granov of the Ministry of Health of Russia. – There are about 140,000 newly diagnosed cancer patients in St. Petersburg! There is a catastrophic shortage of medicines for the seriously ill, people suffer, and it is especially annoying when they are given “dummy” for a lot of money. This is criminal. The state, with the help of independent specialists, experts and law enforcement agencies, must strictly monitor, control and test this market, but for now this is being done, to put it mildly, partially…”.