Biocon Ltd, India’s biotechnology major, sees Russia and the Common of Independent States (CIS) as important markets. The company is exploring possibilities for collaborations to enter these markets and leverage the strength of the partner it identifies in these regions.

The company has registered its Insugen and cancer drug BIOMAb EGFR in the region, besides marketing a range of drugs, including biopharmaceuticals

“We will be continuing to register our brands as per the regulatory requirements,” Rakesh Bamzai, president, marketing, Biocon Ltd  told Pharmabiz.

Biocon considers CIS as one of the key growth regions in its emerging market strategy. “Affordability and availability of quality biopharmaceuticals are key concerns of CIS patients, healthcare providers and governments. We are  now working to  fill this gap by providing our wide portfolio of affordable products, including our high-quality biosimilars,” he added.

Many Indian pharmaceutical companies, with global aspirations are keen to invest in pharma manufacturing in Russia . This follows the ‘Pharma 2020:The Strategy of Development of the Pharmaceutical Industry of the Russian Federation’ where strong emphasis is laid on developing local manufacturing in Russia, said Bamzai.

Now the CIS nations are promising markets and their governments are providing a lot of support with free medication and insurance. CIS/Russia market is expected to grow by 10-12 per cent over the next five years.

 Since 2010, the CIS countries particularly Russia has been encouraging domestic manufacturers to export and therefore there would have some impact on Indian companies. But Indian pharmaceutical industry has been facing these global competitive situations for the past many years.

The Indian pharma industry  has  been successfully leveraging the strong technical base, manufacturing capabilities and cost advantages to face such situations. As a result the Indian companies will be able to negate this impact completely with support from the Government of India, he said.

The global economic crisis is less daunting for the pharmaceutical industry because healthcare sector being a fundamental necessity, will not be greatly impacted with the slowdown and will continue to grow, the President, marketing of Biocon  pointed out.