Bayer is the latest member of Big Pharma to move to Russia -- receiving $860 M in economic development aid to support domestic development and production of therapeutics. Bayer will partner with the locally owned Yunona Holdings.
Russian officials have indicated unhappiness with the fact that the country has to import 80% of its therapeutics. And as a result they're giving preferential treatment to the companies that do more development and manufacturing work inside Russia. The country also has been attracting a number of biotechs avid to tap into the lower-cost clinical studies that can be pulled off there.
This is just the latest example of Big Pharma investing in emerging markets to spur top line growth in an effort to replace revenues lost through patent attrition. In the case of Russia, government policy has been very forceful in demonstrating that you NEED to have a local presence if you want to play in their Market.
Posted by Bruce Lehr Oct 12th 2011.
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