AstraZeneca went to court with demands to annul the registration by the Ministry of Health of an analogue of its drug for the treatment of oncology. As the correspondent of The Moscow Post managed to find out, it can act in the interests of controversial entrepreneurs who may be associated with the former Minister of Health Tatyana Golikova.
AstraZeneca is a UK-registered British-Swedish pharmaceutical company. Positions itself as international. One of the few manufacturers of the coronavirus vaccine, the use of which has been abandoned by some countries due to the identified connection of the drug and cases of blood clots in those who have been vaccinated.
The Moscow Post made investigations about the company back in 2010 - then, in the wake of the success of the company's drug Crestor for diabetics, side effects began to manifest themselves, no more pleasant than in the situation with the coronavirus vaccine. The drug began to be promoted to the Russian market, allegedly using methods of bribing officials and doctors, and this paid off. It is possible that around that time, company officials made friends with Russian managers of the first link.
Native personalities
In the current situation, the dispute is around the drug osimertinib under the trade name Tagrisso. The rights to the generic were registered this year by Axelfarm. This office belongs to five individuals, let's list it by name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Uvarov, Natalya Valerievna Treushnikova, Kirill Andreevich Golovanov (these three own the largest shares), Rostislav Olegovich Mikhailov and Anastasia Olegovna Mikhailova (the remaining shareholders each have 12.5%).
The company itself is a participant in Russian public procurement, on which it earned 109.5 million rubles.
Who are these cute people who are now trying to leave the virtually monopoly right to release a medicine?
Let's start with Nikolai Uvarov. This is the former general director of ZAO F-Sintez, where Oleg Rostislavovich Mikhailov worked. Presumably, a relative of the Mikhailov shareholders of Axelfarm. As The Moscow Post previously found out, Uvarov may be a lawyer.
As for Mikhailov, this is the founder of Nativa. For a decade, this company was headed by Alexander Malinin, who previously worked in the Federal Service for Supervision of Healthcare during the period when Golikova was just the Minister of Health.
It's worth mentioning here that "Nativa" also had disputes like the one we started the narrative with. In 2021, Polisan went to court with a demand to stop protecting the Centroferon trademark, the only one developed by specialists of the small Bisserno company. The production of "Centroferon" was engaged in just "Nativa." Which thus, apparently, wanted to "rake in more heat" through a much more powerful company than Bisserno.
Did Mikhailov's enterprise almost bring to a criminal case?
But let's go back to Mikhailov. Unofficial sources claim that in 2009 the businessman almost became a defendant in a criminal case. This dark story was associated with the sudden death of the sole shareholder of Pharm-Sintez, Mikhail Nazarenko. Oleg Mikhailov at that time worked as the general director of ZAO Pharm-Sintez. And he decided to take over the company, immediately after Nazarenko's death, having come to talk about this topic with his widow. Forbes wrote about this.
Further - more. An enterprising young man managed to talk to many employees of the company in a few days, convince them that it was sold and convince them to get a job in his new company. Nazarenko immediately began to have problems, for their settlement Mikhailov asked 50% of the company, to which he was refused. Business got up, and the company was on the verge of ruin.
Mikhailov, without thinking for a long time, founded his own company with an almost similar name, F-Synthesis (the one where Uvarov worked), which, as it turned out later, was engaged in copying the works of Pharm-Synthesis.
Moreover, after Mikhailov left the company from its laboratories, vials with substances disappeared somewhere. And the Biomed plant, from which the company rented laboratories, evicted Pharm-Sintez. At the same time, finished products remained on the territory of the plant. Later it turned out that the owner of the Biomed plant, Mikhail Mogutov, became a partner of Oleg Mikhailov in the F-Synthesis company. He wrote about this Wek.
As Nazarenko herself then described the situation, Mikhailov had patrons and a powerful administrative resource, so it was almost unrealistic to compete with him. Earlier, Mikhailov was the executive director of the Association of Russian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and is personally familiar with many officials of the Ministry of Health and Social Development. They also heavily dumped (artificially lowered prices) on public procurement, so sometimes they had to withdraw the application altogether.
As a result, Mikhailov moved Nazarenko from the market, while F-Sintez earns billions from public procurement. Mainly from the Ministry of Trade - the department headed by Golikova's husband - Viktor Khristenko.
Photo: Rusprofile
Now, according to Rusprofile, the company has tax arrears, as well as zero revenue and negative profit. The indicators became so after the formal withdrawal of Mikhailov and partners from the founders. By the way, there was an offshore company with them. Did the money go there?
From Basta to the Ministry of Internal Affairs
As for Axelfarm's third shareholder, Ms. Treshnikova, she had a business with a rapper known as "Basta," as well as with the former chief scientific secretary of the Higher Attestation Commission under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education Igor Mikhailovich Matskevich, Head of the Laboratory of Medical Biotechnology of the Russian Scientific Center for Radiology and Surgical Technologies named after A.M. Granova Oleg Alexandrovich Rosenberg, and a colleague in entrepreneurial activity Shinin Yuri Mikhailovich is a complete namesake of the former first deputy head of the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, featured in a high-profile story with the dismissal by President Vladimir Putin of as many as eight generals.
He worked as a respected figure under Mr. Kolokoltsev, and, possibly, represents, among other things, his interests. As you know, his son owns construction assets, and also develops the chain of Italian restaurants Il Forno and companies engaged in the development of sites and applications for mobile operators. Why not add to this "portfolio" and medicine?
Money going abroad?
If you look at the entire "clearing" that the founders of Axelfarm occupy, you can find more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies. Some of them, for example, Pharmmental Group or Spring Field, receive government contracts. And Bratislava Cultural Center LLC, where Mr. Uvarov has a share, has an offshore company DI ES SI BUILDING AI in its founders. POS.. " And here again we see a minus in profit and zeros in revenue.
Thus, a whole conglomerate of personalities with an ambiguous biography once again "presses" on the market, trying to knock out almost a monopoly for itself. At the same time, it is not clear where money from public procurement in related companies settles. And over all this "roars" the lobbying flag of Ms. Golikova and her husband?