Petersburg announced the creation of a "giant drug production"

New Solid Plant in St. Petersburg

The Solopharm company of St. Petersburg entrepreneur Oleg Zherebtsov has opened a new plant for solid dosage forms near its existing plant in St. Petersburg. Investments in the project amounted to 4 billion rubles, the plant's capacity is 2 billion tablets and capsules per year. At the opening, Zherebtsov announced the construction of several more enterprises on the company’s land: “In fact, a private pharmaceutical cluster is being created, a giant drug production.”

20% of Russian demand

The new Solid Plant, according to Solopharm, has become "the most modern pharmaceutical enterprise in RUSSIA." “This is the only modular transformer enterprise in Russia so far. it does not have a single concrete wall, which allows you to change the configuration of production facilities in a short time. The enterprise will have a GMP laundry and a GMP car wash, which most of our colleagues do not have (GMP is an international standard that regulates drug production practices). Thanks to these and other solutions, we will be able to produce medicines at least 22 hours a day - usually in Russian practice, a pharmaceutical plant works 7-8 hours a day, interrupted for maintenance, washing containers, and reconfiguring equipment, ”Oleg Zherebtsov listed the engineering advantages of Solid Plant.

New Solid Plant in St. Petersburg (Photo: RBC Petersburg)

The “anchor” of the assortment of the enterprise will be cardiological drugs; the plant will also produce medicines for pulmonology, neurology, rheumatology, and gastroenterology. “We will close about 20% of Russian demand for those drugs, the production of which will be established,” Zherebtsov plans. Now the company has registered 84 drugs for production at Solid Plant.

Private cluster

SolidPlant is already the third enterprise of Solopharm. Since 2013, the company's plant for the production of liquid medicines has been operating in St. Petersburg. Last year, as Zherebtsov said, the first line of production of dietary supplements was launched in a rented building; investments in it amounted to 620 million rubles. Now the company is preparing to launch several more plants, planning to occupy the entire 8.5-hectare site it owns. “We plan to build until we hit the fence,” said Zherebtsov. “In fact, a private pharmaceutical cluster is being created here, a giant drug production.”

New Solid Plant in St. Petersburg (Photo: RBC Petersburg)

The fourth plant of the company will be an enterprise for the production of hormones - 47 drugs have been developed for it, Zherebtsov announced. The company expects to obtain a building permit for this facility by the end of this year, and start building it in the first quarter of 2023. The next one on the agenda is an inhibitor manufacturing facility.

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Earlier, Oleg Zherebtsov said that the latest changes, which reduce the availability of imported medicines for Russians, are pushing the company to design and build factories faster. “Our company is among those who plan to increase the production of medicines in Russia,” he told RBC Petersburg. - The management and the board of directors believe that it is necessary to redouble efforts to design new production facilities - in our opinion, we need to start building them faster. Therefore, those design decisions that we postponed for 2023-2024, we decided to intensively prepare this year. Although the financial situation in the country has changed, we plan to reinvest all the profits received, as in previous years.”

"They're getting tight"

According to RNC Pharma Development DIRECTOR Nikolai Bespalov, the opening of a new plant for the production of solid dosage forms is a logical step in Solopharm's business development. “The company has traditionally specialized in liquid forms, in recent years it has been noticeable that they are already becoming cramped within their existing manufacturing competencies,” he says. According to the expert, the declared production volume is “pretty decent” by the standards of the Russian pharmaceutical market. At the same time, in his opinion, the project has every chance of becoming successful. “There will definitely be a demand for drugs. In the current conditions, the import substitution policy is becoming not only a state policy, but also an anti-crisis strategy for consumer behavior, the increase in drug prices against the backdrop of a reduction in household income simply leaves no other options. In addition, cardiac diseases are one of the first causes of death in our country; it is clear that the demand for drugs to treat them will remain high,” he says.

Speaking about the technological part of production, Nikolay Bespalov notes that the new Solopharm project can hardly be called unique. “There are a significant number of modern enterprises in Russia with similar or similar production competencies. in St. Petersburg, including the enterprises of Biocad, Geropharm, Novartis, Vertex, etc., are located, all of them are very different both in terms of production capabilities and in terms of therapeutic niches,” he says . At the same time, according to the expert, the success of a pharmaceutical company is determined not so much by the technical capabilities to produce a particular product, but by the effectiveness of the portfolio of manufactured drugs and marketing strategy. “Production is important, but if you can't sell the finished product, then there can be no question of the success of the project. Therefore, for most companies, the formation and promotion of specific brands is a priority. Solopharm has a fairly efficient and rather aggressive team in this regard, so I think they will easily load the capacities of the new production,” he says.