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Binnopharm’s manufacturing and export programme

Binnopharm reported production upgrades, registrations and international cooperation talks.

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Pharmaceutical capsule filling
Pharmaceutical capsule filling

Cooperation talks and the production portfolio

On November 1, 2024, Interfax reported talks between Binnopharm Group’s Sintez plant in Kurgan, Russia, and a Sri Lankan delegation. Ambassador Pakeer Mohideen Amza described three possibilities:

Sintez chief Boris Zhorov called the country a potential partner. The report described discussions rather than a concluded venture. It put Sintez’s portfolio at around 300 products, with approximately 35% manufactured in a full cycle from its own pharmaceutical substances.

The group had outlined its manufacturing base in a February 7, 2024 statement about the preceding year. It reported total production of 371 million packs in 2023 and product availability across Russia and 13 foreign markets. Its Alium facility in Obolensk made 85.5 million packs. The company’s development pipeline also had several distinct stages: 35 products transferred to its research centre, 22 undergoing registration for CIS markets, and ten being prepared for registration in Southeast Asia.

An earlier Alium update, published on February 9, 2023, described the plant’s product launches during 2022. Thirteen new medicines entered production, and their combined sales reached approximately 1.5 billion roubles, according to the company. The release also identified Neobutin as the first export product manufactured at Alium and introduced in Azerbaijan during that year. For 2023, chief executive Rustem Muratov announced plans for more than 70 new export positions, with deliveries intended for Eurasian Economic Union markets, Uzbekistan and Moldova.

Product rights and full-cycle manufacture

Product rights formed another part of the programme. On February 21, 2022, Binnopharm and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories announced an agreement under which Binnopharm, through Alium, would acquire the Tsiprolet and Levolet brands in Russia, Uzbekistan and Belarus. The portfolio covered tablets, infusion solutions and eye drops. Dr. Reddy’s said it would continue supplying the medicines during the transition period. Its executive M. V. Ramana linked the agreement to a narrower focus on other therapeutic areas. The announcement concerned rights to the products and a supply transition.

In its June 2, 2023 account of full-cycle manufacturing, Binnopharm distinguished the share of its antibiotics produced from its own substances from the corresponding share across all products. It said approximately 65% of its antibacterial medicines were made in a full cycle, while Muratov put the proportion for the overall manufacturing portfolio at around 25%. He described this approach as requiring additional investment and said the group intended to increase the proportion. The company also reported expanding its antibacterial portfolio during 2022 with imipenem–cilastatin and doripenem.

Product launches

Alium’s product launches included Laringobakt, which Binnopharm said entered serial production in July 2023. Its August 1 announcement described lozenges in packs containing ten, twenty or thirty tablets. Production took place at the Obolensk factory, whose manufacturing specialisation included solid forms such as tablets, capsules and sachets. The release placed the launch within the company’s continuing expansion of its product portfolio.

Production lines and phased upgrades

Binnopharm’s February 28, 2023 modernization announcement set out several intended changes at Sintez. An infusion-solution line previously located at Alium in Angelovo was to move to Kurgan, adding plastic bottles alongside existing glass-container equipment. Installation was scheduled to finish in March, with finished-product output planned for the first quarter of 2024 after organizational and registration procedures. The company also described a prospective sterile-substance section using freeze-drying equipment. Its stated programme included workshop reconstruction, equipment replacement and a warehouse complex, with planned investment of three billion roubles.

A separate August 9, 2023 release reported an additional capsule machine installed at Alium in Obolensk. Production of Omeprazole-OBL, Diartrin, Fluconazole and Elmucin had moved to the new line; a transfer of Loperamide-Alium was planned. The company reported average monthly production increases of 57% measured in packs and 71% in capsules against the previous year’s figures. Marketing director Maria Bogomolova associated the additional capacity with continued investment in the factory.

Capsule equipment

The January 26, 2024 capsule-production update described another equipment milestone: a fully automated machine rated at up to 7,000 capsules per minute. Commissioning work had finished in December 2023, when the first commercial batches for the Russian retail market were produced on the equipment. Binnopharm expected the new production area to increase supplies. Muratov linked the modernization programme to growing output and an anticipated shortage of labour.

At the Zelenograd Binnopharm factory, a new automatic suppository line was announced on April 4, 2024. Its stated capacity was 15,000 suppositories an hour. Pilot-industrial batches had been completed and commercial production of Venaproct had begun. Binnopharm planned to manufacture three medicines on the line, with two further products scheduled to enter production before the end of 2024. Pharmacy deliveries of the first product were expected near the end of the second quarter. Production director Anatoly Yaglenko said the site was also expanding aerosol, ampoule and solid-form manufacturing.

Packaging formats

The June 14, 2024 Sintez announcement concerned a different packaging and production format. A new area at Kurgan made soft dosage forms in single-use microtubes, using polyethylene containers with a universal tip and a break-off seal. The line began operating in the second quarter and had started commercial batches of Slabiproct. Binnopharm scheduled pharmacy availability for the third quarter. The announced pack format held up to five millilitres.

Sterile filling

Five days later, on June 19, Binnopharm reported the launch of a Sintez line that filled vials with sterile antibiotic powders. The company expected the equipment to increase output of those dosage forms by 30%. Muratov said demand for antibiotics, particularly injectable forms, had prompted the decision to expand manufacturing. The statement also reported earlier modernization of active pharmaceutical substance lines intended to supply the plant’s finished antibiotic production.

Development infrastructure and projects

Development facilities also featured in the programme. During Moscow Region governor Andrei Vorobyov’s May 28, 2024 visit, Binnopharm described its Angelovo research centre in Krasnogorsk, opened in 2023. Around ninety analytical chemists and process engineers worked there. Laboratories covered pharmaceutical analysis and technology, with a stated capacity to develop or improve thirty to forty products annually. Development and registration director Alexei Chupin said forty new products were being developed concurrently. Equipment for a further high-activity production area was being installed, while a training centre was still at the design stage.

On August 15, 2024, Binnopharm reported investing around two billion roubles in its own production projects during the first half of the year. It named factory facilities and the research centre as the principal recipients. Priorities included antibody-production expansion at Zelenograd, a warehouse complex at Sintez and additional granulation capacity at Alium. Chief financial officer Khafiz Gafurov said the investment strategy aimed to increase manufacturing volumes and expand products for Russian and foreign markets.

Equipment partnerships

Chinese partnerships preceded those projects. On June 20, 2023, Binnopharm announced cooperation agreements worth more than three billion roubles at a pharmaceutical forum in Shanghai, China. Planned equipment from Truking Technology and Tofflon exceeded 1.2 billion roubles and covered sterile-solution, injectable-powder and capsule lines. The company also described a Mabwell Bioscience partnership for biological-product manufacturing, with planned investment exceeding 1.5 billion roubles. Full localization of several medicines, including their substances, was envisaged with Russian market launches in 2025–2026. The announcement described planned equipment and localization stages.

Research activity

The company separately reported its research activity on February 14, 2024. During 2023 it had conducted twenty-one post-registration observational studies involving 308 medical institutions, 650 physicians and 15,500 patients. Binnopharm described these projects as work on medicines used in routine clinical practice. It said it was developing a research database and planned both continuations of existing studies and new projects during 2024 under a real-world-data and real-world-evidence programme. Marketing director Anton Fedosyuk described building medical expertise as a priority.

Quality systems and distribution

Distribution arrangements accompanied the manufacturing programme. On January 12, 2023, Binnopharm reported receiving a certificate concerning Good Distribution Practice procedures for wholesale trade, transport and storage of medicines. The company described coordinated quality-management systems throughout the supply chain, including delivery to retail networks and medical institutions. Muratov said distribution certification was becoming more significant for domestic and international supplies. The statement also named representative offices established during the preceding year in Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Opening a Chinese representative office remained an announced intention at that date.

Sintez’s manufacturing certification was addressed in an August 4, 2023 release. Binnopharm said the Kurgan factory had received eight Good Manufacturing Practice certificates during the year. The stated coverage included active-substance and finished-form workshops, quality control, and microbiological and pharmacological laboratories. Quality director Naala Grivapsh said the group’s factories underwent regular checks and linked certification with registration opportunities in Eurasian Economic Union and CIS countries. The announcement concerned the factory’s certification record and the departments covered by it, alongside the group’s stated international expansion strategy.

A further certification update involved Niarmedic Pharma, a factory described as being under Binnopharm’s management. On September 11, 2023, the company reported compliance with Eurasian Economic Union manufacturing requirements following an Industry and Trade Ministry inspection in late August. Grivapsh said the inspection allowed the product range to expand into capsules. The release located the factory in Obninsk, Kaluga Region, and dated its opening to 2015. It reported more than fifteen million packs a year of an original medicine produced in a full cycle, within a complex exceeding 22,000 square metres.

Corporate standards

At the manufacturing-practice conference held in Ufa on August 21–23, 2024, Grivapsh described the group’s approach to quality-system development. Binnopharm’s August 27 account said its five production facilities operated under unified corporate standards and used a computerized system to manage quality processes. Grivapsh also discussed developing staff practices and organizational culture alongside formal systems. She characterized this as lengthy work and linked it to the company’s goals and values.

A company-hosted GxP News account dated March 6, 2024 described the logistics department established in May 2022. It said Indian partners’ supplies had moved onto the company’s own arrangements during the first half of 2023. One reported route connected Dr. Reddy’s production in Mumbai, India, with Novorossiysk through the Indian Ocean and the Red, Mediterranean and Black Seas in twenty-one days. The account also described container routes through Kazakhstan and Mongolia, and temperature-controlled delivery of ampoules to Alium. These were experiences reported by the company’s logistics team.

Registrations and export markets

Registration work included adapting existing dossiers to Eurasian Economic Union requirements. In a November 21, 2023 statement, Binnopharm said 244 authorizations, representing 94.94% of its active medicine portfolio, had been brought into conformity with the union’s legal framework. Research and regulatory director Gulnara Setdekova described organizing this work during the transition period. The company received recognition for planning submissions at the Reglek 2023 conference. This account concerned the alignment of existing registration materials; the company’s subsequent international updates separately counted authorizations obtained for specified markets and reporting periods.

Annual authorizations

On January 19, 2024, Binnopharm reported receiving ninety marketing authorizations during 2023. Ten had been issued by Russia’s Health Ministry under Eurasian Economic Union requirements for use in Russia. The release also described approvals across CIS markets, Georgia and Transnistria. Muratov said products were available in thirteen countries and representative offices operated in seven, including China. He presented future registration in China and other Southeast Asian markets as a route for expansion.

First-quarter documents

The March 27, 2024 update reported sixteen authorizations in seven CIS-plus markets during the first quarter: Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. Named examples included Venarus in Moldova, Neobutin in Belarus and Georgia, and Urdoxa in Georgia, Uzbekistan and Armenia. Binnopharm said documents were issued under the relevant local and union requirements. Muratov reported eight representative offices, including China, and said the company intended to continue introducing products in foreign markets.

Half-year approvals

The August 7, 2024 report extended the reporting period to the first six months, during which the company said it received thirty-three foreign marketing authorizations. It described mutual-recognition procedures in Eurasian Economic Union countries and registrations in other territories, including Mongolia. The listed portfolio included Dexonal, Elmucin, Nurofast and Moxonidine-Alium. Development and registration director Chupin said the company was expanding both established brands and generic products outside Russia. The thirty-three-document figure covered the half-year; it was not an additional count to be added to the earlier first-quarter total.

Export sales

The company’s March 29, 2023 export report provided an earlier commercial baseline. Export sales during 2022 reached three billion roubles, a reported increase of 23%. Citing IQVIA, Binnopharm identified Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan as principal growth markets and reported more than thirty-eight million and twenty-five million packs sold there respectively. In Kyrgyzstan, it reported sales exceeding twenty-eight million packs and 638 million roubles. Sales and promotion director Ekaterina Slavgorodskaya described representative offices as a channel for direct contact with customers and partners.

Financial results

In its March 21, 2024 financial release, Binnopharm reported 2023 revenue of 32.5 billion roubles, up 14%, and adjusted EBITDA of 9.5 billion roubles, up 19%. Net debt was 12.7 billion roubles. Investment in development, including factories and the research centre, reached four billion roubles. The company reported an 11% increase in foreign sales measured in packs. It described promotion through medical representatives and advertising campaigns.

Pharmaceutical product pipeline stages
Pharmaceutical product pipeline stages

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