The Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies (Kyiv) plans to register in Ukraine a vaccine against coronavirus (COVID-19) disease produced by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech until February 5, after the vaccine is registered in Brazil, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies Valeriy Pechayev said at a press conference held at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.
“The company received confirmation from the Health Ministry that when registering a vaccine in Brazil, Ukraine will register the vaccine as well. From January 25, Brazil will start immunization with the Sinovac vaccine, they should register the vaccine by January 25. As soon as registration in Brazil is completed, we will submit documents to the State Expert Center. I think we will register the vaccine before February 1-5,” he said.
Pechayev said that Lekhim received from Sinovac a quota of 5 million doses of vaccines for sale in Ukraine in the first half of 2021, of which 1.913 million doses are planned to be purchased by the Health Ministry.
“Until February 15, Lekhim is receiving applications from enterprises for the supply of vaccines. Lekhim will check customers for compliance with the cool chain. The price for customers will be UAH 504 per one dose of vaccine. The profitability of the deal for Lekhim is 4-5%,” he said.
In turn, Director of the Department for Development of the Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies Mykhailo Rensky said that it is difficult to talk about the timing of vaccine supply, since they are prescribed only for a contract with the Health Ministry.
According to Head of the National Technical Group of Experts on Immunoprophylaxis, pediatric immunologist Fedir Lapiy, as clinical studies in Brazil have shown, the effectiveness of the vaccine to prevent mortality was 100%.
Lapiy said that there is no generalized report on clinical trials for any of the COVID-19 vaccines. “After clinical studies, manufacturers take data from different countries and combine them. There is no such data from any manufacturer yet,” he said.
At the same time, Lapiy said that it is impossible to assess the effectiveness of the Russian vaccine against COVID-19, since it failed the third phase of clinical trials.
Sinovac Biotech is a Chinese vaccine producing company founded in Beijing in 2001 with a capacity of 300 to 500 million doses of six types of vaccines for humans and animals per year. Sinovac’s main products are vaccines against hepatitis A (prequalified by the WHO) and B, influenza, mumps, chickenpox, which are registered and approved for vaccination in 34 countries around the world.
The Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies was founded in 1992. It includes three enterprises: PJSC Technolog (Uman) (at the final stage of obtaining WHO prequalification), JSC Lekhim-Kharkiv (Kharkiv) and the management company JSC Lekhim (Kyiv).
CoronaVac is an inactivated vaccine. It uses a traditional vaccine mechanism in which a non-living virus that cannot replicate in human cells is used to activate the immune system. Phase 3 trials of the Chinese vaccine have already taken place in Brazil and Indonesia. Tests are ongoing in Turkey and Chile.
Boryspil International Airport (Kyiv) in 2020 reduced passenger traffic by 66.2% compared to 2019, to 5.158 million people.
The press service of the airport told Interfax-Ukraine that 4.69 million people on international flights were serviced (a decrease by 66.9% compared with the last year), and 468,100 on domestic flights (57.3% less).
The number of arrival/departure flights serviced by the airport in 2020 amounted to 46,850 (57.7% down), including 38,376 international flights (60.6% down), and 8,470 domestic one (36% down).
The number of cargo handled by the airport in 2020 fell by 10%, to 37,790 tonnes, while in December 2020 the airport handled 4,273 tonnes of cargo.
In December 2020, Boryspil’s passenger traffic decreased by 69.3% compared to December 2019 and amounted to 323,700 passengers. At the same time, 286,500 people were serviced on international flights (70.6% less), 37,200 on domestic one (53.8% less).
The number of arrival and departure flights in December 2020 amounted to 3,575 (54.2% down), including 2,728 international flights (60.3% down) and 847 domestic flights (9.4% down).
BORYSPIL, BORYSPIL AIRPORT, BORYSPIL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, PASSENGER TRAFFIC
SkyUp Airlines (Kyiv) from April 25, 2021 launches flights on the route Kyiv-Brno (the Czech Republic)-Kyiv.
The press service of the company said the flights will be operated twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays.
The cost of tickets from Kyiv to Brno without luggage starts from UAH 1,016, from Brno to Kyiv from UAH 966.
As reported, the commission of the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine decided to recommend to the head of the service to grant SkyUp the right to operate the Kyiv-London (UK) route for regular flights for an unlimited period from January 4, 2021.
PJSC Energomashspetsstal (Kramatorsk, Donetsk region), owned by Russia’s Atomenergomash (Rosatom state corporation), in 2020 increased steel production by 6.8% compared to the previous year, to 63,000 tonnes.
A source in the industry told Interfax-Ukraine that 3,000 tonnes of steel were produced in December.
As reported, Energomashspetsstal in 2019 reduced steel production by 4.8% compared to 2018, to 59,000 tonnes.
Energomashspetsstal is the largest Ukrainian manufacturer of special cast and forged products of individual and small-scale production for metallurgy, shipbuilding, energy (wind, steam, hydro, nuclear) and general mechanical engineering.
On Wednesday, the business court of Kyiv will hear a court case under a claim of TIU Canada, owned by Refraction Asset Management (Calgary, Canada), against Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant (NFP) due to the disconnection of its 10.5 MW solar power plant from the power grid in March 2020 year.
“Today’s hearing is the first date for the trial since the completion of the preliminary hearing last month,” TIU Canada said in a report, which is available to Interfax-Ukraine.
According to the report, the solar power plant with a capacity of 10.5 MW was disconnected by the NFP from the power grid on March 2, 2020 “despite the fact that only electricity producers have the right to initiate the disconnection of the plant from the power grid in accordance with Ukrainian law.”
TIU Canada aims to immediately restore the connection to the electric grid and plans to bring NFP and its shareholders to full responsibility in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine, the company said.
The company said that NFP took advantage of the fact that the solar power plant was connected to a substation located on its territory, and explained the need for shutdown by carrying out repair work.
According to TIU Canada, the illegal shutdown caused over EUR 1.5 million in losses to the company, which “continue growing every day.”
At the same time, the company refers in the report to the high assessment of its activities by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky at Ukraine Reform Conference in Toronto in July 2019, who noted the priority of developing green energy and thanked the company for its work in this area.
“Now this case is becoming a test of President Zelensky’s readiness to protect foreign investors in Ukraine,” TIU Canada said.
Sem Ecopack LLC (Tomakivka, Dnipropetrovsk region), part of Effective Investments Group, intends to invest about UAH 170 million in the creation of a new production of ecological cardboard packaging Sem Ecopack in Sambir (Lviv region) with a capacity of 150 million units of packaging products per year.
“The new production will appear on the site of the former bakery. Sem Ecopack LLC has acquired the real estate of the plant from Khlibprom Concern,” the press service of Effective Investments told Interfax-Ukraine.
Sambir bakery was part of Khlibprom concern (associated with founder of OKKO Group Vitaliy Antonov) and was closed in 2018 by the decision of the management of the concern.
The press service of the group noted that at the first stage Sem Ecopack plans to invest about UAH 70 million in the restoration of the existing production complex and more than UAH 100 million during the next stages. The new production facility in Sambir is planned to be commissioned in early 2022.
“I hope that in a year Facebook will remind me of these ruins, and I will show you an already operating production here! An inspiring story when you can build a European-level enterprise from the ruins with the export of products to Europe,” head of the group’s supervisory board Ihor Liski wrote on Facebook, accompanying the post with photographs of the premises of the former bakery in Sambir.
According to the press service, currently Sem Ecopack LLC, established in 2014, is developing two areas: the production of ecological packaging and mechanical engineering, while the engineering direction uses more than 80% of Ukrainian components.
