OREANDA-NEWS In Russia, there is a shortage of drugs for the treatment of breast cancer "Ixempra". This is reported by Kommersant with reference to industry representatives.

In 2023, more than two thirds (78 percent) of auctions for the purchase of cancer drugs used in the treatment of one type of cancer did not take place. In the third and fourth quarters, the share of failed trades reached 98 and 94 percent, respectively. Purchases decreased 4.2 times from 318 million rubles in 2021. From 2022 to 2023, a batch of 2.7 thousand packages was delivered to Russia. In 2021, R-Pharm US put into circulation almost 24 thousand packages of the drug.

According to the Ministry of Health, the shortage arose due to pricing: due to a change in the supplier of the substance and an increase in the cost of raw materials, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) on January 15 agreed to increase the marginal price of the drug by 35 percent, to 25 thousand rubles.

The Ixempra drug based on ixabepilon is produced at the facilities of the German Baxter, its secondary packaging is carried out at the Russian plant of the R-Pharm group, a subsidiary of R-Pharm US, which bought the rights to produce the drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) in 2015. Ixabepilon is one of almost a dozen and a half effective drugs for the treatment of breast cancer, so its disappearance will be noticeable, said Evgeny Ledin, chief specialist in the profile of medicinal antitumor therapy at Medsi Group.

In August 2023, it became known that the Swiss cancer drug Mabthera would disappear from sale in Russia. The registration of the drug was revoked by its manufacturer, Roche, the Ministry of Health said. The drug was developed for chronic patients with cancer of the lymphatic system (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma), but it was almost not purchased due to the availability of cheap analogues that are produced in Russia and India.