OREANDA-NEWS. April 12, 2013. A Russian-owned and managed pharmaceutical company, GEROPHARM-Bio, a subsidiary of Geropharm, has obtained a five-year EBRD loan to finance part of the cost of expanding and modernising of its production plant at Obolensk in the Moscow region in order to help it comply with international standards.

The Bank’s EUR 5 million loan will allow the plant to join the small number of Russian pharmaceutical producers to achieve the industry’s key international GMP standard, once the project is completed.

Adoption of GMP (Good Manufacturing Practises) standards is one of the  government’s strategic goals set for the local pharmaceutical manufacturers.

The privately-owned Geropharm group, whose main focus is on pharmaceuticals for neurology, ophthalmology and endocrinology, is one of the few Russian pharmaceutical companies involved in the development and production of original innovative and biotechnological drugs.

The Company is also a full-cycle industrial producer of genetically engineered human insulin.

The Obolensk plant modernisation, along with new filling and packaging lines for the Company’s original drugs, will enable the group to more than double its annual insulin output as well as shift to a higher value-added production.

The estimated total value of the Russian pharmaceutical market in 2011 was nearly USD 21 billion with only around 22 per cent representing domestically produced drugs. The government development strategy for the Russian pharmaceutical industry envisages a significant increase in the share of local production.

The EBRD has to date invested over EUR 150 million in pharmaceutical and healthcare industries in Russia and nearly EUR 500 million in total in the sector in EBRD countries of operation.