On March 11, the Committee of the Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation on Entrepreneurship in Healthcare and Medical Industry, the Commission of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) on Health Industry, the RSPP Commission on Pharmaceutical and Medical Industry, and the Department of Medical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) held a joint meeting on the second day of the applied scientific conference “Peculiarities of Immunoprophylaxis of Infectious Diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The panelists dwelled on the topic “Vaccine prophylaxis and development of the national vaccine production. On implementation of the Coordination Plan to build facilities in Russia for full-cycle development and producion of vaccines included or scheduled for inclusion in the National Preventive Vaccination Calendar (NPVC) and Preventive Vaccination Calendar (PV) to meet epidemiological needs.”

The meeting was co-chaired by RSPP Executive Vice-President, Chairman of the RSPP Commission on the Health Industry Victor Cherepov, Chairman of the RSPP Commission on Enterpreneurship in Pharmaceutical and Medical Industry, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valery Sergienko, Chairman of the RSPP Commission on Pharmaceutical and Medical Industry, President of Rosmedprom Association Yuri Kalinin.

Yuri Kalinin, Chairman of the RSPP Commission on Pharmaceutical and Medical Industry and President of Rosmedprom Association, made a keynote speech. He pointed out that more than ten national companies with all the scientific and other relevant competencies operate in the Russian market today. A significant shift has been taking hold on setting up a flexible production of vaccines for highly dangerous infections. Further efforts should be made to set up a state-of-the-art production of such vaccines according to current demands and ensure economic feasibility of production.

Maksim Stetsyuk emphasized that clear deadlines for adding new vaccines to the NPVC list are highly important for vaccine manufacturers and that these deadlines should be anchored in legislation. This will help to timely set up a local production or develop the necessary vaccines from scratch. Long-term contracting is of utmost importance. Two-year vaccine supply contracts with the Ministry of Health have proven to be an effective tool which allows to evenly utilize production capacities by minimizing the risk of vaccine shortages in some regions.