They don’t make chromatographic flasks in Russia – ExpertRU
As assessed at the Health Assurance conference, pharmaceutical manufacturers said they were in dire need of columns, or capillaries, for quality control chromatographs, as well as the chromatographs themselves. “The stock of chromatographic columns we have is enough for three to six months,” says Alexander Semyonov, President of the Active Component Group of Companies. – The Japanese Shimadzu, with which everything worked basically, left Russia, and now we are looking for a replacement in China. They also searched for a chromatograph for a long time; only two weeks ago they could show us the Chinese apparatus, we will elect it.”
Chromatographs are chemical analyzers: they are devices that use various tubes – in the form of cones with additives to particles. They also separate substances into elements that are used for all areas, mainly for quality control of products and materials, and to an even greater extent – in practical research. Waters, Phenomenex, Agilent Technologies, as well as the German Macherey-Nagel and Merck. Some Russian distributors of medical equipment sell Chinese analogues of chromatographic columns, but, as a rule, pharmaceutical manufacturers require non-standard columns that are suitable specifically for their equipment. Some got the hang of buying speakers from the same manufacturers, but through subsidiaries in Europe, in most cases, representative offices took place. True, Alexander Semenov noticed that at this cost, the column increased by 30–50%, and delivery increased by a multiple.
With chromatographs, it is all the more difficult: they are directly designated as dual-use products, so the supplier must be sure that his equipment is not used in Russia, even through third countries. “Of course, you can evaluate a similar import or an analogue from China,” says Binnopharm Group CEO Rustem Muratov. “Last month, we ruled out that the Chinese chromatographs are in strict connection, although few people outside of China probably saw them. Therefore, it will be necessary to understand the specifics of their equipment and the voltage service.
The next day, the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade announced that it would expand the list of goods that could be imported into the country through the chromatographic import mechanism by connecting it to chromatographic equipment. They are not used because there are analogues and domestic technologies for chromatographic analyzes in Russia. Chromatographs of our own design in various modifications (gas liquid or liquid) are produced by Lumex, Chromatek, Meta-chrom. For example, chromatographs manufactured by Kristall and Khromatek are used in the Russian petrochemistry, industry, including science, medicine, forensics (there are many different detectors and assemblies in it). They are typical, but in different configurations they depend on the complexity of the tasks (the size of the molecules of substances, the number of their types, and many others). “Our chromatographs are among the few Russian pharmaceutical companies, and no one has used them yet,” says Dmitry Milochkin, Deputy Marketing Director of Khromatek. — At the same time, we have up to 80 percent of our components and components for some types of chromatographs. What do we sell to the same China. The share of Russian companies in chromatographic equipment is estimated at a few percent, because, according to manufacturers, their quality is underestimated, “they are used to looking primarily at imports.” Alexander Semenov confirmed that he did not know about the Russian production of chromatographs: “Be sure to watch and study,” he assured Expert.
Another thing is that manufacturers of chromatographs also need columns for them, in fact, in glass flasks. “The fact is that their internal layer volume, such a fixed absorption phase, can be very tangibly determined down to tenths of a micron,” Dmitry Milochkin explained. – And it must be absolutely uniform throughout the entire surface: not 0.3 microns, for example, but only 0.2. The effectiveness of the analysis depends on this. And there really is no equipment for the beginning of the formation of thin layers of the solid phase in Russia, and in the world only a few companies own it.” Stanislav Goldberg, vice-president of the Opora NP association, believes that Russia is unlikely to launch production of its own chromatographic columns in the near future. “In Soviet times, there was such equipment, but it was very crude, and there is no point in reviving it. The creation of such technologies will require years of development, and most importantly, a large sales are needed, so for payback, multipliers are aiming at the global market.”