Passionate debates on hot topics continue at the Gaidar Forum. Vladimir Khristenko, President of NANOLEK, participated in the discussion on Immunological Prophylaxis: Development Prospects for 2035.

This topic has been raised for quite a long time at various specialised venues and passionately discussed by experts from various authorities. The most efficient prophylaxis of various diseases, including lethal, is vaccination, it is a well-known fact. It becomes even more important in the context of implementation of demographical policy, ensuring biological safety in the modern world and increasing population’s expectancy of healthy life.

What challenges are faced by the community and what tasks are to be resolved to use the existing achievements more efficiently? How to implement the immunisation concept, taking into account the prospects of vaccination calendar planning? Is vaccination supply planning possible in the long-term? Those and many more questions have been discussed by gathering experts.

Vladimir Khristenko expressed his point of view and shared his vision of existing problem solving:

“Both the Russian healthcare system and National Vaccination Schedule develop actively, this should be admitted: previously non-existent vaccines (e.g. pneumococcal disease) appear in the calendar, combined vaccines start to be used, budget is growing. Over the last several years it has increased from RUR 8 to 22, positive shifts are obvious.

On the other part, there are some aspects that restrain the industry from development. I would like to switch the most important thesis. Most of various support programs could be changed by the only one: guarantee of the National Vaccination Schedule development and guarantee of vaccine procurement within the framework of developing National Vaccination Schedule.

Here is why. Time is of essence in our industry. The project for inactivated poliomyelitis vaccine localisation was launched in 2012. In 2017, when we prepared a pharmaceutical form, a problem known to everyone arisen, it was a global deficit of poliomyelitis vaccine. Thanks to the existing pharmaceutical form, we were able to fix this problem quite quickly.

Last year we entered into agreement with the Chumakov Institute (that develops a full-cycle poliomyelitis vaccine) to launch a full-cycle production in 2022 in Russia and enter the WHO market in 2027. It will take 10 years from the project launching to full-cycle production, 15 years until export is started.

We need guarantees of inclusion of a vaccine in the National Vaccination Schedule in a certain year. In 2019, NANOLEK entered into a range of agreements (with GSK for varicella vaccine localisation, with Sanofi for Meningococcal disease vaccine localisation, etc.), yet actually we have no idea of when these vaccines would be included in the National Vaccination Schedule. The most awful is that by the end of this work, unfortunately, there is no guarantees that the product to be produced will be demanded.

Let us consider Rospotrebnadzor’s official figures: economic losses from three vaccine manageable infections, i.e. varicella, rotavirus and meningococcus, last year totalled to RUR 53 bn. The budget of the National Vaccination Schedule totals to RUR 23 bn.

For example, given the cervical cancer sickness statistics, it is clear that this malignancy is the main cause for death of women at the age of 30 to 39. The question is what we wait for to include this vaccine in the National Vaccination Schedule.

Therefore, we are ready as manufacturers, we have vision and offers. Obviously, a huge work is needed to achieve this goal: epidemiologists’ forecast for growth in incidence rate, the state is to perform work for procurement price planning, data on childbirth in 5 years are needed, the above requires huge preliminary work from in terms of forecasting. Similarly, our work requires huge preparation as well, huge contribution of time, resources and, first and foremost, intellectual capital. Therefore, I would like to invite all attending experts to return to this question repeatedly.