Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade wants to support Russian pharma R&D

Pharma-2020 Program provides for the establishment of a venture capital fund to support R&D of Russian pharmaceutical companies at the early stages, announced Alexey Alekhin, the Head of Department of Pharmaceutical and Medical Industry Development of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, at the 2018 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

“Today, we have an idea, which is already being reviewed together with the development institutions, to establish a venture capital fund under the program,” said Mr. Alekhin.

This will be a state-owned fund authorized to independently select its projects.

According to Mr. Alekhin, it may start operating from 2019. The applications will be selected by using several levels of expert examination confirming that the drug will really help to solve problems in the health care “within the framework of presidential decrees and have the export potential.”

 “The development institutions pay attention to later stages of R&D that are beyond the risky phase and when they can say with more confidence that the product will be introduced to the market. The venture fund will be able to finance the earlier stages,” said Mr. Alekhin.

The term and amount of co-financing is still under discussion, but “this should be a significant amount of funds.”

“We are now preparing the substantiating documents for the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development, and we also requested the development institutions to provide their estimates of the average project bill and will use this information to analyze the eventual amount of financing required for the Fund,” he said.