"Ozempik" discord: Punia will work according to the old scheme?

The family of large pharmaceutical distributors Punia, allegedly involved in non-payment of customs duties and tax fraud, is trying to "knock out" another niche for itself to earn money.

Russian pharmaceutical companies have begun a "struggle" over who will sell the next drug leaving Russia. This time, they are striving to get a niche of Ozempik glucose control, which was previously occupied by Danish Novo Nordisk. Work on an analogue of the start of "PSK Pharma."

The company is part of the Rus Biopharm group and is controlled by Satia Punia. This surname is well known in the Russian pharmacology market. Satiya's brother, a native of India, Vikram Punia, made money back in the 90s on the supply of medicines from India to the Siberian regions, and then founded the Pharmsintez company, which is called one of the favorite companies of the former Minister of Health Tatyana Golikova.

What "threatens" the Russian market to get the production of a vital medicine into the hands of Punia - in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post.

It was yours - became ours

It is worth making a reservation that Ozempik is a drug with not the most joyful "biography." It was often used for weight loss, due to which prices soared, the medicine began to be swept off the shelves. For an individual, the use of the drug off-label can result in tragic consequences. Industry magazines wrote about this in detail.

Well, we will talk about those who want to enrich themselves at Ozempik.

We studied the base of arbitration disputes of PSK Pharma and came to the assumption that the company, with the connivance of the regulatory authorities, may be engaged in banal theft of rights to the production of certain drugs, which at least threatens with periodic "disconnections" of the company from the supply system. This means that consumers overnight can be left without drugs while the manufacturer, who illegally received the right to supply, tries to restore it or begins to "dig" in the other direction.

There are not one or two indicative cases. For example, last year a case was heard in which Kyezi Pharmaceuticals S.p.A. demanded to cross the threat of violation of the exclusive right to invention under Eurasian patent No. 006068 by PSK Pharma. It was about the drug Tobramycin.

According to the plot of the case, the plaintiff supplied this drug to Russia since the 90s, and the defendant suddenly received a registration certificate for an analogue of the drug. Apparently, it was not without an agreement with officials. Since, in 2019, the defendant and the Ministry of Health of the Moscow Region signed a state contract No. 0148200005419000193-01, according to Appendix 1 to which the defendant is obliged to supply the Ministry of Health of the Moscow Region with 16,800 units of the drug containing the same tobramycin annually for 7 year.

Photo: https://kad.arbitr.ru

The court denied the claim, citing an allegedly independent examination of the drug.

In the current situation, when PSK Pharma also received permits in October to study the bioequivalence of SMGS and LRGS drugs in the field of endocrinology (their dosages coincide with those of semaglutide and liraglutide glucose control drugs from Danish Novo Nordisk), the same thing may happen. Or maybe the opposite.

For example, when PSK Pharma argued with Pfizer over the right to sell the drug Tofara, for some time the court banned PSK from its civil circulation.

Photo: https://kad.arbitr.ru

In the situation with Ozempik, "turks" can also begin - the drug wants to be produced not only by PSK Pharma. He has already been "taken into circulation" by "Geropharm" and "Promomed." The first in early October has even registered its development. How long?

How to save $1.6 million at the expense of the state in one fell swoop

The surname of Satiya Punia "glowed" including in another resonant case concerning customs payments. As it turned out, not only his brother, Vikram, in 2018 could be a real beneficiary of the Farmsintez he founded. The court case clearly says that Satiya was the general director of the Pharmsintez supplier CAMUS PHARMA PVT.LTD. And came under the eye of the FCS in connection with suspicions of lower prices for imported drugs.

Amounts in the case of "space." And, if Punia really saved on customs payments, then here he smacks of a particularly large fraud. If this is proved, the brothers are likely to be due. And their pharmaceutical empire is capture and takeover. How this will affect production - there is no need to guess.

According to the plot of the case, a contract for the supply of pharmaceutical substances in the amount of US $7,000,000 was signed between Pharmasintez JSC (Buyer - Russia) and CAMUS PHARMA PVT.LTD (Seller - India) in 10.01.2018. During customs control, the relevant body identified signs of a statement of inaccurate information:

- lower prices of declared goods compared to the price of identical goods (according to the Malachite Information and Reference System, the deviation of the declared customs value from the average level of customs value for goods of the same class and type developed by the Federal Customs Service of Russia amounted to 24.05%);

- dependence of the sale of linezolid substance goods on the conditions and obligations, the impact of which on the price of goods cannot be quantified - in the region of activity of the Vladivostok customs, identical goods produced by the same manufacturer and delivered under the same contract are declared for customs declaration, the level of customs value of which is significant (more than 2.5 times) exceeds the index of the customs value of goods declared under DT No. 10607010/ 221018/0000696.

Simple arithmetic speaks of a minimum of 1.6 million damage in dollar terms.

But the court sided with the defendant. I decided there was not enough evidence.

Former Minister of Health Tatyana Golikova will not let Punia "drown"? Photo: Ramil Sitdikov/RIA Novosti

With all this, Satiya Punia could also manage to retroactively quit CAMUS PHARMA PVT.LTD in order not to fall into the hands of the security forces, and at the same time prove the alleged lack of affiliation with the buyer of the goods.

As follows from the plot of the case, Punia was dismissed from the post of director of CAMUS PHARMA PVT.LTD with 01.09.2018. The goods were delivered to his brother's company three days after this event. Funny coincidence, don't you find it? And legally everything is clean - Punia, who was retired at the time of signing the Specification, could not influence the price of the goods actually paid or payable.

Thus, the court concluded that there was no relationship between the seller and the buyer. Brilliant! It remains only to take off your hat to the enterprise of our heroes.

How much a rope you can't weave...

But this is far from the only case that could actually be followed by criminal punishment. "Pharmasintez" in the same ill-fated 2018 was suspected of tax evasion in the amount of 190 million rubles. The case was opened, but the move, apparently, was not given.

Meanwhile, we all remember about the offshore, the general director of which at least about 2018 was Vikram's brother. Could the "surplus" have settled there?

Claims are accumulated and accumulated, and the beneficiaries of all these stories seem to be not hiding. Perhaps the whole thing is true in a special connection with the greats of this world? The Moscow Post spoke in detail about how, when trying to enter the market for the production of a drug for coronavirus, Vikram Punia wrote to Ms. Golikova, despite the fact that she was no longer the head of the Ministry of Health.

But impunity cannot last forever. And, given what "purges" are now going on in the medical field, it is quite possible that the Punia family will soon have to remember everything that they managed to "turn around."