No denials of medical equipment supply to Russia's FMBA, logistics adjusted - agency head

MOSCOW. May 24 (Interfax) - Not a single foreign supplier of medical equipment has denied delivery to Russia's Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA), agency head Veronika Skvortsova said.

"We have adjusted the logistics and, in fact, no one is denying us supply. There are various importation routes, through Turkey or Azerbaijan, or through Central Asian countries, there is a variety of options," Skvortsova said at a meeting of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy on Tuesday.

The FMBA is working together with Rosatom, Rostec and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to substitute the imports of the most significant medical instruments, including products of higher quality, she said.

Not a single foreign specialist in the FMBA's employ has left Russia, and all of them continue to work here, Skvortsova said. In addition, FMBA institutions are ready to develop analogues for a number of drugs for orphan diseases, including an analogue of the Zolgensma drug for spinal muscular atrophy, she said.

"For starters, we have asked the Health Ministry and the Industry and Trade Ministry to give us a list of what needs to be substituted first and foremost, primarily, drugs for orphan, or very rare, diseases, drugs that are expensive, and are not available in Russia and can only be imported. So, we have received a list of molecules we are due [to substitute]. I can tell you that federal state unitary enterprises of the FMBA said they could 'easily' do that," Skvortsova said.

Six drugs will be ready within six months, and it will take approximately eight months to develop another two, she said.

There is also the task of developing an analogue of the Zolgensma drug for spinal muscular atrophy, which is the most expensive medicine in the world, Skvortsova said. "No problem, we can do it. It will cost not just many times, but ten times cheaper here," she said.