The biopharmaceutical company “Biopharma” invests about $2 million annually in education; plans for this year include opening biology schools in Uzhhorod and Lviv, company president Kostyantyn Yefimenko told the “Interfax-Ukraine” news agency.
“We invest about $2 million in education every year. We have already built two biology schools in Kyiv and Bila Tserkva. After school, the children come to us for extracurricular classes. Ten hours a week: three hours of math, three hours of chemistry, and four hours of biology. It’s free for the children, but they’re taught by top-notch instructors,” said Yefimenko.
He noted, however, that the goal of this project is not to train a large number of employees specifically for the company.
“We don’t need a very large number of people at Biopharma; our revenue per employee is over one million dollars. We need talented people, but not a large number of them. I’m doing this as a charitable project; I want to build 25 such schools in Ukraine. I want these people to start creating their own companies in the biotech sector. This is impossible to achieve with the current level of school and university education. It requires people with highly specialized training. And I hope that we will be able to train such people; they will come to us so that we can help them or invest in them, and create these companies together with them. My goal is to create the conditions for such an ecosystem,” Yefimenko noted.
He announced that the immediate plans include opening two more biology schools, in Uzhhorod and Lviv, which will begin operations this fall.
“Biofarma” is a Ukrainian biotechnology company engaged in plasma collection and specializing in the production of plasma for the manufacture of blood products.
biology schools, biotechnology, EDUCATION, Yefimenko, БІОФАРМА
A separate cluster dedicated to the study of biotechnology, in particular, countering biological threats, will be created at the Presidential University of Information and Cybersecurity, Minister of Health of Ukraine Viktor Liashko said.
“A separate cluster at the President’s University will be devoted to biotechnology: biological threats, chronic non-infectious diseases, aging of the population, many pathogens that cause diseases in humans and animals. These are all the threats for which we must prepare,” he said at the All-Ukrainian Forum entitled “Ukraine 30. Education and Science” on Monday.
According to him, this cluster will include: School of Biotechnology, Center for Clinical Research, National Health Research Center, Higher School of Medicine, BSL-3 laboratory, School of Public Health, and Center for Safe Professional Development.
As reported, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree on the creation of a presidential University, which will study information and cyber security, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, aerospace, energy and biotechnology.
The decree has not been made public yet.
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.
