Projects for the renovation of industrial facilities can provide opportunities for the development of domestic pharmaceutical production facilities and the implementation of a pharmaceutical safety strategy, Executive Director of Farmak Volodymyr Kostiuk has said.

"We believe that Ukraine should have a strong pharmaceutical industry, there should be science, we believe in Ukrainian innovations. We announced the start of construction of an innovative R&D center in Kiev, where we will conduct the development and testing of new modern drugs," he said in at the Kyiv Agglomeration. Creative Transformation investment forum held in Kyiv on Friday.

Kostiuk said that the project of the R&D center, in which investment nears $40 million, will bring innovations, advanced technologies and modern science to the historical industrial development of Kyiv.

"With the development of the new R&D complex, we expect to provide prestigious and interesting work for our scientists, helping to reduce the brain drain abroad," he said.

At the same time, Kostiuk said that since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, all countries have rethought the role of the national health system.

"It became absolutely clear that when the standard supply chains broke down and countries restricted the export of finished drugs or APIs to meet their own needs, when ports were closed and there were limited international transport links, the role of constant and strong domestic pharmaceuticals turned out to be key," he said.

In an effort to meet the needs of the national health system, Farmak has limited the export of certain medicines since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. The company was also forced to restructure its logistics to ensure the continuity of API supplies.

Farmak limited the export of finished products to more attractive markets in terms of money, because we understood that these drugs are needed on the Ukrainian market. We withstood the crisis, quickly rebuilt production, and promptly changed our plans. For some drugs, we did not have enough raw materials, but the Ukrainian pharmaceutical industry withstood and passed the waves of the pandemic without any shortage," he said.

Kostiuk also said that in 2020, Farmak invested EUR 345,000 in wastewater treatment facilities in Kyiv to increase their efficiency.

He recalled that the company annually reinvests about 90% of its profits in the construction of new production sites, modernization, IT technologies, scientific developments. Since 1995, Farmak has invested $310 million in the construction of factories, modernization and introduction of advanced technologies.

In particular, in 2020, Farmak opened a modern workshop for the production of aseptic medicines. Investments in the project totaled EUR 50 million. Investments in research and development over the past 10 years have reached $100 million.

Farmak remains the largest taxpayer among pharmaceutical companies in Ukraine. In 2020, more than UAH 712 million of taxes and fees were paid to the budgets of various levels, including UAH 120 million to the budget of the city of Kyiv.

As reported, the pharmaceutical company Farmak invests plans to open an innovative research R&D center in Kyiv in 2023.

The decision to build an R&D center was made a few years ago due to the expansion of the geography of presence and the portfolio of medicines. The new center, in particular, will have analytical laboratories, a technological laboratory with equipment for the development of finished drugs with various methods of their delivery to the human body and the introduction of personalized medicine protocols of the 21st century.

The new R&D center plans to continue working in three main areas: finished dosage forms, proprietary active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), as well as an innovative area in which Farmak has been working since 2015 – biotechnological APIs. In addition, on the basis of the new complex, a special location will be equipped for young scientists who are not employees of the company, where they can engage in scientific activities and create prototypes of drugs.

Farmak is the leader of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market. The company's product portfolio includes more than 220 complex-component modern medicines. Among the main directions are endocrinological, gastroenterological, cardiological, neurological, anti-cold and other drugs.

The production facilities and laboratory and technical complex of the company have received international certification of compliance with GMP standards.

In 2020, Farmak increased its export deliveries by 40%. Its products are represented in more than 30 countries of the EU, Central and South America, the CIS, the Middle East, Asia, etc.