‘Doctors, unfortunately, stopped issuing individual prescriptions’
As part of the development of industrial pharmacies, Tatarstan is planning to produce drugs for rare diseases
A new industrial pharmacy will appear in Kazan
Since last September, a law aimed at reviving the activities of industrial pharmacies has been in force in Russia. Pharmacists in such institutions make drugs according to patients’ individual prescriptions. Currently, a whole network of industrial pharmacies of Tattekhmedpharm operates in Tatarstan. One of them, pharmacy No. 361, was visited today by State Duma deputy, former Minister of Health of the Republic of Tatarstan and Vice Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Ayrat Farrakhov. As the deputy said, it was Tattekhmedpharm that proposed the bill on the revival of industrial pharmacies.
“Since 2010, such institutions in Russia began to close — they considered that they were not needed. But at the same time, the industry did not provide children's drugs, ointments, and an individual approach. Some children need syrup, and some need a suppository. It is not profitable for the industry to make individual orders,” explained Ayrat Farrakhov.
As a result, large production pharmacies remained in only five to eight regions of Russia, including Tatarstan. Today, Tattekhmedfarm includes 17 production pharmacies. Three are located in Kazan, two in Naberezhnye Chelny, and the rest are scattered throughout the regions of the republic. They produce more than a million dosage forms per month, not only providing for our republic, but also supplying drugs to Mari El and the Ulyanovsk region. In the near future, the pharmaceutical organisation is going to increase production.
“We built a large production pharmacy on 11 Tikhoretskaya Street. We want to launch it early next year. It has already been completed, and we are currently receiving the necessary documents for licensing, and are setting up and launching the existing equipment. I hope that [we will open] in early February,” Oleg Akberov, CEO of Tattekhmedfarm, told Realnoe Vremya.
“Homeopaths really like our hand-made medicines, they say that the aura is good”
It will not be possible to develop individual production of medicines without the active assistance of doctors. “Unfortunately, doctors stopped issuing individual prescriptions,” Farrakhov stated. According to Akberov, Tattekhmedfarm is cooperating with the medical university so that students can be taught how to prepare prescriptions (Editor’s note: prescriptions regulating the composition of the medicine being manufactured).
So far, doctors are not actively enough issuing individual prescriptions to patients, the pharmacy complained. However, Tattekhmedfarm also supplies medicines to medical institutions. Homeopathic clinics are also interested in the pharmacist's services. Only Pharmacy No. 361 in Tatarstan makes medicines for them. “Homeopaths really like our hand-made medicines, they say that the aura is good,” shares head of the pharmacy Zulfiya Galeyeva
“There is a big problem at the federal level with the injection solution of sodium chloride. We have it in production,” says the CEO of Tattekhmedfarm.
The pharmaceutical organisation is planning to produce drugs for rare diseases (rare forms of diseases affecting a small part of the population). “The issue of their release is being considered at the federal level. We are seriously monitoring this, trying it on ourselves. Once a decision is made, we will be ready to produce this kind of product,” promises Akberov.
