The most expensive medicine in the world appeared in Russia

This was reported by Interfax with reference to the data of the operator of the Chestny Znak marking system - the Center for the Development of Advanced Technologies (CRPT).

“The first packages of Zolgensma were labeled and entered into civilian circulation,” the report says.

The operator indicated that the first three packages of the drug had already been used by the Morozov Children's Hospital in the capital and the National Medical Research Center for Children's Health.

The Zolgensma drug from the Swiss company Novartis costs more than $2 million. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that one injection of the drug completely heals the child from a deadly disease - spinal muscular atrophy. Two other drugs, which are also used in the treatment of SMA and are very expensive, slow the progression of the disease. But they do not guarantee complete recovery.

Due to the extreme high cost of drugs for SMA, not all patients can receive timely treatment. Without proper treatment, children with SMA tend to die painful deaths before they reach adulthood.

Russian scientists are now working on the creation of a domestic analogue of Zolgensma . Thanks to the localization of production, it should become ten times cheaper than the original, the monopoly high price for which is kept by a Swiss pharmaceutical company.

At the end of June this year, the Russian company Biocad submitted an application to the Ministry of Health for clinical trials of the first Russian drug ANB-4 for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

The drug has been developed since 2018, and the first experiments began in 2019. An effective dose for the first administration to patients has now been determined. The study wants to include children with SMA under the age of eight months, as well as those with the first manifestations of the disease under the age of six months.