Russian representatives responded to accusations that hackers from Russia are allegedly trying to steal vaccine secrets from Western laboratories. The news that one of the Russian companies will become a global partner in the production of the vaccine, which is currently being tested by the international corporation AstraZeneca, proved to be very timely.
On Friday it was announced that if the development of AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford proves successful, the Russian company “R-Pharm” will take over part of the production to supply the Russian market and many other countries. “The transfer of a cell line and an adenoviral vector to Russia has been completed, and here the production of an antigen and the release of the finished drug form are planned, according to the company’s press release.
It is expected that exports will be organized to more than 30 countries worldwide, including the Middle East, the Balkan region and the CIS countries”. According to the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, this clearly shows that Russia has no reason to try to steal scientific developments, as several Western intelligence agencies have claimed.
“There is no need for theft and secrets,” Dmitriev told the British Times Radio. “Everything has already been transferred to R-Pharm, a company from our portfolio, which will produce the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in Russia.” RFPI is an investment structure created by the Russian government. Together with “R-Pharm” they are working on the construction of a new plant in Yaroslavl for the production of a coronavirus vaccine. This is part of a scientific and technological race to develop and produce a Russian vaccine.
Scientists working on the vaccine at the Gamaleya Center have announced the completion of the first phase of clinical trials. The Gamaleya Research Center in Moscow and the Vector Center in Novosibirsk are considered leaders in this field. Scientific research requires multi-billion dollar investments to scale up the vaccine – a complex biotechnological process that will take several months.
RFPI and “R-Pharm” have signed an agreement on cooperation with the Gamaleya Center. Both organizations will invest 4 billion roubles in the factory. Sberbank has promised to provide an additional 3 billion roubles. In the announcements about the start of construction of the factory in June, it was already mentioned that it will also produce drugs for export.
“R-Farm” is one of the largest Russian distributors and manufacturers of pharmaceuticals. The main owner of the company is Alexei Repik, who also heads the organization of businessmen “Business Russia”. According to Forbes, he ranks 48th in the list of Russia’s biggest businessmen. 10% of the company was sold to the Japanese company Mitsui & Co in 2017. In July, the company registered an anti-coronavirus drug called Coronavir, based on the active ingredient favipiravir. In Japan, this drug was found to be ineffective against the coronavirus – a conclusion reached by the Fujita Institute after clinical trials involving 89 patients. But at the Russian “Chemrar” (this company has a joint venture with RPHI “Kromis”, which also registered favipiravir), they informed “Kommersant” that the data of the Japanese study are preliminary.
The AstraZeneca/Oxford University and Gamaleya Center developments are linked by the fact that they both use an adenovirus-based vaccine model. According to experts, the equipment for the production of both vaccines will be practically identical.
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“In principle, it is possible to set up production within a few months. The important thing is that these will be new production lines that meet international standards – this is very good news. International production, international quality, international vaccine – I consider this news extremely positive for Russia and the world,” says Anton Gopka, co-founder of the American biotech fund ATEM Capital. “It is very correct that we started working on the production setup in advance, this will shorten the process. It is difficult to speed up vaccine trials. You can only speed up bureaucratic processes. There are many administrative issues in production that can be accelerated,” Gopka emphasized. The race for AstraZeneca’s vaccine is now closer to the finish line as it enters the third and final stage of clinical trials – testing the vaccine on large groups of several thousand volunteers. Russian scientists have only completed the first stage so far – last week it was announced that human safety trials of the vaccine had been completed on a group of 18 volunteers. This does not prevent representatives of the Gamaleya Center from making regular statements that clinical trials will be completed as early as August and that mass production of the vaccine will begin in mid-autumn. Some analysts consider these statements to be overly optimistic. “Setting up vaccine production typically begins after successful completion of clinical trials and usually takes another year. Production technologies for adenoviral vaccines are not simple, as it is a complex biotechnology product. Scaling up production is a challenging task and not guaranteed in terms of timelines,” warns Gopka.
Representatives of companies in the biotechnology market say that so far none of the developments has a solid guarantee of success and implementation in production. But in the extraordinary situation of the pandemic, both in the West and in Russia, the development of capacities for drugs that have not yet passed all tests began in advance. Some of the experts interviewed say that a large-scale agreement with AstraZeneca provides a certain guarantee that Russian investments in building new vaccine lines will not be wasted. The question is whether foreign and Russian developments will eventually compete for these lines.
One of the factors that will be taken into account, even if the first batches of AstraZeneca’s vaccine can be delivered to the Russian market (R-Pharm has not yet confirmed this), will be the higher price of such a drug. “It should be taken into account that in the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the price will be determined in London if there are no special agreements. Usually, large pharmaceutical companies leave pricing issues to themselves, so the price of the AstraZeneca vaccine may be high, and they will not be able to make a significantly different price for Russia compared to their domestic market. The price of the Russian vaccine will be determined in Russia,” says Anton Gopka. However, British media claim that the signing of the contract between AstraZeneca and “R-Pharm” and Russian hacker attacks are unrelated matters, and that Russia is trying to divert attention from its covert activities with its current statements.
On Thursday, three special services – the American National Security Agency (NSA), the British National Cyber Security Centre, and the Canadian Communications Security Establishment – simultaneously announced hacking attacks on scientific laboratories in Western countries by the Cozy Bear group, also known as APT29 and Dukes. It was not specified which specific scientific institutions were targeted. Cybersecurity experts believe that Cozy Bear is linked to the Federal Security Service. Russian authorities have repeatedly denied allegations of hacking. The Times, citing its sources in British intelligence, writes that “the agreement between the companies is not linked to concerns about attacks on Western scientists by the Kremlin-linked Cozy Bear group. According to the publication, Russian hackers have been conducting “persistent and persistent” attacks on research labs since February this year. The newspaper quotes its source as saying that the new agreement “will not vindicate them. Times Radio host John Pinar asked Kirill Dmitriev if he thought the denials by three Western intelligence agencies, confirmed by the positions of the political leaders of those Western countries, were fantastic. The head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund replied: “This is a simple fact that you do not mention. It is that the Oxford vaccine is part of an agreement between AstraZeneca and R-Pharm to produce the vaccine in Russia, with all the technologies and know-how. So there is no need to “steal” anything. Pinar countered that Russia may not be fully confident in its own developments, especially considering the high number of Covid-19 cases among Russians, and is therefore interested in learning as much as possible about research in other countries. Dmitriev responded that Russia has one of the lowest rates of coronavirus infection in the world.