Asian pharma in Russia: the local-partner route and the cost of early mistakes

On 14 August 2026 Vademecum published a partner interview with WIT Pharma managing partner Dmitry Klimchuk on how pharmaceutical companies from China and India are entering the Russian market - and why this has become a structural shift rather than a set of isolated stories. Below are the key points of the interview with updated factual context.

The starting frame: Western manufacturers are scaling back their presence in Russia, and demand for innovative therapy - above all in oncology and immuno-oncology - is increasingly being met by products developed in China and India. As a rule, they enter not directly but through Russian partners.

The model: a licensee, not an office

The working scheme almost never involves the Asian company opening its own office. The headquarters transfers rights and technology to a Russian licensee partner, which takes on production localisation, registration and steering the product into state-funded programmes. The logic is unforgiving: a product without localised key production stages can hardly count on a stable position in public procurement, while navigating the registration procedures from outside, without knowing the Russian specifics, is a near-impossible task.

The project is always two-sided: the foreign manufacturer's task is to choose the market and the partner; the licensee's is to take the product through registration and the reimbursement lists.

Three cases - three stages of maturity

Camrelizumab (Areima), an originator PD-1 inhibitor developed by Jiangsu Hengrui, is the example of a fully completed journey. In May 2026 Petrovax Pharm launched full-cycle production in Podolsk: the API is synthesised at the Gamaleya research centre, and the company put the localisation investment at over RUB 2 billion. The product is on the 2026 VED list.

Zanubrutinib (Brukinsa), BeiGene's haematology-oncology product in partnership with Nanolek, is mid-route - and shows that a first successful case is usually followed by a whole portfolio.

Toripalimab, developed by Junshi Biosciences, is at the start of the road: in May 2026 R-Pharm and Dr. Reddy's (the molecule's licensee across 21 countries) signed an agreement under which all finished-form production stages will be localised at R-Pharm's facilities; Russian registration is expected in 2027.

The formula from the interview: camrelizumab proved the route is passable; zanubrutinib - that the model can be replicated; toripalimab - that a queue of interested companies has already formed.

Where time and money are lost

The full route - from registration under EAEU rules to inclusion in the VED list - takes several years, and foreign approvals barely accelerate it. The typical reasons a product that is strong by international standards fails at the commission: a weak pharmacoeconomic case; unreadiness to make specific pricing commitments fixed right at the session; a key argument built on a not-yet-registered indication; and a broken sequence of procedural steps.

The statistics are sobering: across the February and April 2026 sessions, the Ministry of Health commission supported three dossiers out of ten reviewed. Resubmission is a normal part of the process, but each attempt costs six months to a year and requires an updated data package.

The urgency factor: 10 October

Applications for the VED list are accepted four times a year; the next window, feeding into the 2027 list, closes on 10 October 2026. Clinical-economic and budget-impact analyses take months to prepare, so companies targeting the autumn sessions need to be building their strategy now.

The consultant's role on this route is analytical: assessing the market and the molecule's potential for the headquarters, selecting a local partner, and preparing the evidence base and a methodologically sound dossier for the licensee. The task is to make sure the dossier is as strong and correctly assembled as possible by the time the decision is taken.

Sources

Dmitry Klimchuk's interview with Vademecum, 14 August 2026 (vademec.ru, partner material); Vedomosti, PharmMedProm and pharmprom.news on the launch of full-cycle Areima production (21 May 2026); RIA Novosti and GxP News on the R-Pharm - Dr. Reddy's toripalimab agreement (19 May 2026); Government Directive No. 3867-r of 18 December 2025 (the 2026 VED list); minutes of the Ministry of Health commission sessions of 10 February and 28 April 2026.