Biopharma pharmaceutical company is mulling the possibility of building fractionation plants in Latin America and Africa, co-owner of the company Kostiantyn Yefymenko has said.
“Our next project will be the construction of a blood fractionation plant on other continents. We are now considering Latin America and Africa,” he said during a discussion at the Kyiv International Economic Forum.
Yefymenko noted that currently Biopharma chooses “between Egypt and Nigeria.”
“We associate this with the political situation in both countries. Our next investment will be the expansion of the business of blood plasma fractionation and the construction of plasma centers in these countries,” he said.
Biopharma is a Ukrainian biotechnology company, the only plant in Eastern Europe that has modern technologies, and has been producing and developing medicines from donated plasma for almost 50 years.
The company is focused on providing Ukraine with medicines and supplies its products to more than 30 countries of the world on a contractual basis. In the autumn of 2019, Biopharma moved its production to a new scientific and production complex in Bila Tserkva.
The company is developing a network of its own plasma centers. Now they work in Sumy, Shostka, Konotop, Cherkasy, Dnipro and Kharkiv.
Biopharma pharmaceutical company intends to fulfill its annual production plan through large orders in the fourth quarter, co-owner of the company Kostiantyn Yefymenko has said during the presentation of the study “Portrait of a Ukrainian Entrepreneur” conducted by the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs together with UMG with the support of Cipe.
“COVID-19 hit our business very seriously. We allocated UAH 15 million for humanitarian aid – we helped the Public Health Center and installed a laboratory for PCR and EIA diagnostics. We have already spent about UAH 10 million for the purchase of personal protective equipment and payment for our employees, work from home,” he said.
“Our business in April-June fell in total, I think, by 50%. After all, we produce hospital drugs. In Ukraine, virtually all operations except urgent ones were closed. We also suffered losses in a number of export regions. Now, since September, it is actually the first month our business has resumed, and we see large orders for the fourth quarter. In fact, for the fourth quarter we need to do what we did in six months and therefore we plan to fulfill the annual plans at our enterprises. The Tribo group of companies, I think, will lose 20% of proceeds in dollars. We are preparing for difficult times, preparing reserves,” the expert added.
In addition, Yefymenko noted that Biopharma plans to occupy 5% of the market for production of drugs from donor plasma in five years.
“We want to process one million liters of plasma within five years, we want to occupy 5% of the world market. Our mission is to bring the availability of protein therapy to developing countries. For this, we want to build plasma centers in at least four countries of the world as we are only in Ukraine now. If we are talking about plans for the next ten years, we have a task to build two more plants on two continents. To occupy about 10-12% of the world market and from 13 companies that are engaged in fractionation of blood plasma in the world (the company ranks 12th), we want to enter the seven, that is, we must be a company with a turnover of at least $750 million,” he said.
Biopharma pharmaceutical company (Kyiv) has accumulated about 150 liters of plasma from 118 donors who have had coronavirus (COVID-19) for the production of the drug for COVID-19, and the same amount is needed to create an experimental series.
The company informed Interfax-Ukraine that it is necessary to collect 300 liters to create the first experimental series of drugs.
“Not everyone who is diagnosed has developed antibodies, but they are the main weapon against the disease. However, there are cases of asymptomatic course of the disease. That is why everyone who donate plasma in our centers is tested for antibodies to COVID-19,” said the president of the company, Kostiantyn Yefymenko.
He called on Ukrainians, representatives of government, business and public activists to help attract donors who have overcome the coronavirus.
He said that if antibodies are detected, the collected plasma is used to create a drug for coronavirus, if there are no antibodies, then other drugs are made from donated blood.
Biopharma also reports that clinical trials of use of Bioven in the symptomatic treatment of coronavirus are completed. This drug is also produced from donated plasma. In particular, according to the company, during the Bioven research, Ukrainian and international experts noted that it reduces the severity of the cytokine storm and helps stabilize the condition of seriously ill patients.
“The preliminary results of the studies are extremely encouraging: everyone who took Bioven, observe the stabilization of the general condition up to two days after taking the drug, followed by a decrease in manifestations of respiratory failure,” the company reported.
As reported, clinical effectiveness trials of domestic drugs AMIZON MAX (produced by Farmak), Amiksin IC (Interchem), Bioven (Biopharma) and Corvitin (BHFZ) are underway in Ukraine.
Biopharma pharmaceutical company (Kyiv) plans to invest $7 million in construction of new office and laboratory complex.
The company told Interfax-Ukraine that the complex will be built on the territory of its plant in Bila Tserkva (Kyiv region).
“Some of the facilities in the territory of the scientific and production complex [in Bila Tserkva] were sold to STADA Ukraine. We decided to build a new building. It will be a separate building from the building of the fractionator plant,” the company said.
In addition, the company said that Biopharma sent $500,000 to buy laboratory equipment for the diagnosis of COVID-19, test systems, artificial lung ventilators, and blood gas analyzers.
Biopharma is a Ukrainian biotechnology company, the only plant in Eastern Europe that has modern technology, has been manufacturing and developing drugs from donated plasma for almost 50 years.
The biopharmaceutical company Biopharma begins to conduct EIA (enzyme immunoassay) tests for availability of COVID-19 antibody assay for all plasma donors, EIA testing will identify those who have the disease in a latent form.
“Biopharma purchased 12,000 EIA tests manufactured by Roche and on May 18 we will begin testing donors for antibodies on our hardware base,” Kostiantyn Yefymenko, the co-owner of the company, said on his Facebook page.
He recalled that Biopharma has begun collecting plasma from donors who have undergone COVID-19.
“The first liters of such plasma have already been prepared, and our team is doing a very difficult job. We understood that it would not be easy. Very difficult,” he wrote.
Yefymenko noted that the number of potential donors is very limited. So, out of 4,700 people who recovered (at the time of publishing the post of Yefymenko) in Ukraine, 40% are older than 60 years and cannot be donors, 20% cannot be donors according to their indications.
“There remain 1,800 people in a large, forty-million country, who need to be found, and not all, but volunteers who are ready to become a donor,” he explained.
As reported, Biopharma has begun the development of a hyperimmune immunoglobulin based on plasma of people who had COVID-19, this drug can be effective for specific treatment of COVID-19.
Biopharma is a Ukrainian biotechnology company, the only plant in Eastern Europe that has modern technology, has been manufacturing and developing drugs from donated plasma for almost 50 years.
Biopharma pharmaceutical company (Kyiv) urges citizens who came through coronavirus (COVID-19) to become plasma donors to develop a medicine against this disease, which the company is launching. The company told Interfax-Ukraine that hyperimmune immunoglobulin may be effective for specific treatment of COVID-19.
The development of the medicine is carried out under Biopharma’s participation in the work of the International alliance of companies specializing in the production of blood plasma medicines, which also includes Takeda and CSL, Octapharma, Biotest, BPL, LFB, Sanquin, GreenCros, ADMA Biologics.
“Our plasma centers in Sumy, Cherkasy, Dnipro, Kharkiv began plasma blank. All the facilities of our plant in Bila Tserkva, all the forces of our team are directed to the development of medicines. I am sure that effective treatment of COVID-19 will appear,” co-owner of the company Kostiantyn Yefymenko wrote on Facebook.
In turn, businessman Vasyl Khmelnytsky, a co-owner of Biopharma as well, said that the development of an effective medicine against COVID-19 requires the support of people around the world who are ready to donate their plasma after coming through the disease.
“We urge those who have recovered to contribute to the fight against the pandemic and, if their health allows, to become a donor,” he wrote on Facebook.
The company said that Biopharma urged all survivors who wish to become blood plasma donors to contact the company’s hotline. Donors will be transported to their plasma centers, where blood plasma can be donated, and back, and they will get compensation for donation.
The company said that it is ready to register and transfer donors from any settlements.
In addition, Biopharma said that one more direction of the fight against coronavirus infection is the clinical study that have begun to evaluate the effectiveness of Bioven medicine manufactured by Biopharma Plazma LLC in the complex treatment of patients with pneumonia caused by COVID-19 and SARS- CoV-2 coronavirus infection.
