Export strategy, investment: Belarus’ government reviews pharmaceutical industry

The development of the domestic pharmaceutical industry was reviewed at a government meeting chaired by Belarusian Prime Minister Aleksandr Turchin on 23 September, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian government.

The agenda includes the current state and development of the pharmaceutical sector, including biopharmaceuticals, and the systemic barriers slowing it down. Participants discussed whether the pharmaceutical industry is an attractive investment today, how important it is to achieve self-sufficiency in active ingredients, what scope exists for developing domestic raw materials for medicine production, and what the export strategy and prospects for entering new markets look like.

Representatives of the Healthcare Ministry, Belpharmprom holding company and heads of state and private pharmaceutical enterprises were among those invited to the discussion.

The head of government outlined the pressing issues. “The first is the direction of the industry’s technological development. What are we capable of? Are we capable of unique innovative products, or are we potentially not ready and our role is to transfer and adapt foreign technologies? The second block of issues is investment attractiveness and barriers to business. I would like to hear, first of all from private business representatives, what the objective reasons are and what difficulties exist in implementing these projects in our country,” Aleksandr Turchin said.

Another topic was pharmaceutical substances. “Do we produce anything ourselves or do we only purchase? And the diversification of our purchases: how resilient are we to the various challenges and risks that materialize with enviable regularity? An important issue is the use of domestic raw materials and cross-sectoral cooperation, and exports. In fact, our exports are entirely concentrated in the CIS countries. So what about export diversification?” the prime minister outlined.