MINSK, 15 August (BelTA) – It is necessary to vigorously develop biopharmaceutics in the country. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the statement at a meeting held on 15 August to discuss the matter, BelTA has learned.
The head of state noted that in any country two things are vital for people’s lives: food and healthcare. With its well-developed agriculture, Belarus is good at providing food. The second factor is as significant. Particularly taking into account how the world develops at present, with people often travelling and spreading various kinds of diseases with them.
“There is plenty of pestilence in the world. However white, nice, and blue-eyed Belarus may be, we are in the center of the enlightened world and various kinds of illnesses and diseases are carried by people. This is why it is necessary to treat them,” Aleksandr Lukashenko clarified.
Continuing the line of thought, the president mentioned African countries, to which Belarus is now providing serious aid in order to ensure food security. But healthcare is an even more pressing matter for this region. “Treating people in Africa is a number one priority,” the Belarusian leader said. Pharmaceutics, the treatment of people will remain topical, with the demand for them getting higher all the time. Their development as individual industries has exceedingly great prospects in Belarus, the president is convinced.
“We talk a lot about our development. Any country that is independent, sovereign… And not only those. Part of a country, of an oblast – they always think about in what direction they should develop, how they should develop,” he remarked. For instance, for countries like Russia the way of development is rather obvious due to the country’s size and possession of a large amount of natural resources. “It has everything: oil, natural gas, gold. Russia has all kinds of resources. It can sell them and live a well-off life,” Aleksandr Lukashenko explained using an example. Back in the days of the Soviet Union Belarus actively developed its processing sector, the manufacturing sector, with resources from the entire Soviet Union being funneled into the republic. But nowadays it is necessary to seriously think about what economy branches should be prioritized in the future.
“The Soviet Union was a powerhouse. It had resources, raw materials, and technologies. And what should we do? We need [resources] because we have rather well-developed traditional economy branches: mechanical engineering, agriculture, oil processing and so on. We extract and mine some. Certainly, not as much as we need and things other than those extracted and mined in the Russian Federation. So what should we do?” the president pointed out. He remarked that the matter of future development in conditions of scarce natural resources is being seriously discussed in Belarus and is constantly on the radar of the head of state.
“The world has given us a serious chance for development and for our country to be rich. I mean the human potential,” Aleksandr Lukashenko continued. “Our people have decent brains. The people can make a lot. And this is why information technologies and everything related to them, artificial intelligence have emerged… And one of the areas we can excel at is medications and veterinary drugs.” As a substantial advantage they do not require the availability of significant natural resources, mineral deposits. They need first and foremost qualified personnel and technologies. Belarus has both. “We need brains. We need to invest the technologies that are already known and progress further,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
“This is why as we determine areas of our development for the next five-year term, I think we should look for industries and areas that are less dependent on resources like oil, natural gas, iron, metal, and so on,” the president advised. “We will need those as well but in comparatively small amounts for the legacy we’ve inherited from [the Soviet] Union to live on. We’ve preserved and modernized it. And there are new areas to explore, including medications.”
This is why the meeting focused on the strategic development of the largest biotechnological enterprise focusing on veterinary drugs – OAO BelVitunipharm. At present the company makes 150 veterinary drugs, including 26 biological products.
“Belarus walks along the path of import substitution towards technological sovereignty as they like to call it these days. It is impossible to achieve that without large manufacturing facilities of our own. Without centers with proprietary scientific labs and R&D products where people think 10 and 20 years forward. Vitebsk Oblast has all the prerequisites for setting up a powerful industrial group in the field of biopharmaceutics. But is Vitebsk Oblast the only suitable area? We should take a broader view on the scale of the country. In other words, whether this industrial group can work for the benefit of agriculture and for the benefit of healthcare. BelVitunipharm is supposed to become the technological core,” the head of state explained the importance of the meeting’s topic.
The president has already visited the enterprise and met with the top managers. The visit took place in August 2021. Back then the intention to implement an investment project to organize the production of medical vaccines was mentioned among other things. The head of state signed decree No.430 to that effect after the visit.
“We’ve discussed your business plan most thoroughly but the devil is in the details,” Aleksandr Lukashenko remarked with criticism. This is why one of the goals of the meeting is to find solutions to the problems that have emerged.
First of all, the president wondered how presidential decree No.430 is being implemented. “You insisted on it. I agreed. I signed the decree. If it has not been implemented, I need to know why and who will be held responsible for it. Because coming to me once again and pretending that you have nothing to do with the failure to fulfill the degree won’t work,” the head of state warned. “I am told that the main problem is the so-called package of investment projects with varying degrees of readiness. In particular, the complex to manufacture vaccines has not been finished and expensive equipment stays idle. It is unacceptable. You’ve been given considerable money from the state budget.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko urged to finally make up minds about how the company should proceed in order to finish the projects: finish building the manufacturing facilities on its own or find an investor. It may be advisable to use capabilities of medication manufacturing enterprises that are already available in Vitebsk Oblast but are operating below capacity for now. For instance, OOO NatiVita in Beshenkovichi. Apart from that, the president wondered about the company’s plans to improve the laboratory routine, create a modern vivarium and other essential installations. The wise use of non-core assets was mentioned.
Aleksandr Lukashenko was told that all the interested parties had agreed on what further steps should be taken to develop BelVitunipharm Company and had worked out a plan of action for consideration of the head of state. “If additional decisions from the president are necessary, submit proposals,” the Belarusian leader said in conclusion of his introductory speech during the meeting.
“BelVitunipharm is only part. We need to look at all the enterprises as a complex: which ones will make medications, which ones will make veterinary drugs, how we will work in this field, what we should achieve, and the rest,” he added.
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