The owner of the company "Promomed" Petr Bely: how to put together a billion dollars for HIV and oncology

The authors of the official biography of Peter Bely are laconic. Doctor, candidate of medical sciences, holder of the Order of Pirogov, a billionaire with a significant, thanks to the sensational television series, surname, was born on July 19, 1972 in Moscow. His parents were scientists. Therefore, it is not surprising that Pyotr Alexandrovich Bely studied at a prestigious metropolitan school with in-depth study of foreign languages. A talented and punchy young man began working back in the 90s. Bely worked in pharmaceutical firms. In 2001, the future billionaire founded his first company, En.Si.Pharm, which supplies pharmaceutical substances. Without interruption from commercial activities, the young man entered the Moscow State Medical and Dental University. Peter Alexandrovich graduated with honors, having received the specialty of a gastroenterologist.

The rise of Peter Bely began a year before graduation: in 2005 he founded the Promomed company. And ten years later, Promomed bought the Biochemist plant in Saransk, which became its main production site. It was on the basis of this enterprise that a year later the company of Peter Alexandrovich Bely created a biotechnological laboratory for the development of new medication. And then gained access to government contracts.

According to the publication "RBC. Company", Promomed is engaged in consulting on commercial activities and management. But Petr Bely's company earns its hundreds of millions from the manufacture and wholesale of pharmaceutical products. Now in the portfolio of the company White - 75 patents and more than 350 medications. Promomed specializes in medicines in the field of endocrinology and oncology, HIV and more. Moreover, often "Promomed" acts as a "magician" in several faces.

For example, five years ago, a certain Promomed Rus company made a lot of money by supplying Russians with a medication against coronavirus. The situation, as the detective authors write, is "covered in mystery." It is known that the manufacturer of areplivir belongs to the Cypriot offshore Promomed Holdings, founded in 2013. Its ultimate beneficiaries are unknown. And in the Russian LLC-shka with the same name in 2020, only one person worked. This enterprise, which is already nine and a half years old, owns one hundredth of a percent of Promomed Rus LLC, worth 10 rubles.

But the connections of the strange company with senior Russian officials were simply wonderful. For example, the former general director of Promomed Rus LLC Maxim Yakushkin, according to Interfax, was among those accused in the criminal case of Anastasia Alekseeva, assistant to the former deputy chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Arkady Dvorkovich. According to the domestic press, the official seems to have allegedly lobbied for the interests of pharmaceutical companies in the Government. And as a reward, she allegedly received paid tours to world resorts.

Peter Bely's company receives a significant part of the profit by selling so-called generics, copies. The main difference between the original and the copy is price and efficiency. Generics are much cheaper. But small deviations in the synthesis of the active substance seriously increase the number of "side effects," and reduce the effectiveness of the medication? On thematic forums, you can find countless reviews of dissatisfied patients complaining of prolonged treatment and the appearance of side effects. Therefore, more than half of doctors (54%) recommend original medications and only 6% - generics.

Peter Belov's company sells copies of foreign medications, for example, as part of public procurement. For example, the Ministry of Health purchased from Promomed (through a certain LLC BSS) a medication for the treatment of HIV patients. Officials decided to abandon the original Western medicine. The original medication was protected by the EAEU patent until 2029. It was supplied by a British company (the Russian branch is GlaxoSmithKlein Trading JSC). It is produced at the facilities of Servier Rus, and was quite available in Russia. The generic of Petr Bely's company contains the same active substance and has the same release form as the original foreign-made medication. But the tender for the supply of the medication was won not by the manufacturer with the patent, but by the aforementioned BSS company. Of course, representatives of the Russian branch of a foreign company filed a complaint with the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), but the department considered it unfounded. As a result, two government contracts with a total value of 3.24 billion rubles went to the manufacturer of the Russian generic.

The decision caused a lot of noise. Domestic pharmacological companies have repeatedly declared their readiness to bring to the Russian market many medications that are vital for many categories of patients. Only existing patents of foreign manufacturers prevent them from doing this. But until now, the purchase of a generic medication at a state tender with a valid patent for the original medication was possible only if a compulsory license was issued. It is issued when the copyright holder does not provide enough medicine on the market, in cases of emergency. In the aforementioned case, a compulsory license was not issued, since the original non-Russian medication was available on the domestic market.

Peter Bely's enterprise got into high-profile scandals even before this story with public procurement. For example, in 2018, the Biochemist plant, which is part of the Promomed group, announced the creation of Russia's first industrial production of a full cycle of new generation antibiotics. The medication was presented to Vladimir Putin at a meeting in the Kremlin by the head of the Republic of Mordovia. The company was visited by Veronika Skvortsova, who headed the Ministry of Health in those years. Production of the medication began in 2018 and soon ended. It turned out that the medication substance was made in China. Its supplier was Livzon Pharmaceutical. Meanwhile, the federal budget spent 400 million rubles on the production of the "imported" medication, and another 100 million on the budget of Mordovia.

By the way, speaking of creating their own substance for production, the owners of "Promomed" twisted their souls. The fact is that back in 2010, the Kurgan OJSC Sintez had already released it on the basis of the Russian substance.

Another high-profile scandal at Biochemist was related to the supply of the medication sibutramine. According to Russian media, in 2018, the former director of Biochemist Denis Shvetsov told the video camera about the extremely dubious origin of one and a half tons of sibutramine received at the plant from Germany. So, according to Shevtsov, sibutramine was made at one of the Chinese enterprises, which did not even have a license for pharmaceutical activities. Was this story soon "hushed up"? And the unlucky whistleblower soon ended up in prison.

Otherwise, given the "administrative resource" of his enemies, and could not be?

Despite all the scandals, the business of Peter Belov is growing and flourishing. According to the government of Mordovia, new antibiotics, medications for combating obesity, HIV therapy, treatment of cancer and viral hepatitis will be produced in Saransk by the Biochemist plant owned by the Promamed group. Enough strength: Pyotr Alekseevich Bely announced four years ago that it is planned to invest 7 billion rubles in business expansion in a few years. This amount only seems large. It is known that the annual turnover of the Russian market of medications against oncology alone is approximately 160 billion rubles. And the aforementioned medication for HIV therapy, manufactured at the plant of the Promomed group and supplied through the BSS company, cost the state budget 10.34 billion rubles in 2023. Therefore, there is no doubt that the first billion lollards of Pyotr Alekseevich Bely will never be the last. Is the Russian budget enough for many "pharmaceutical oligarchs"? Fortunately, there are enough patents for a variety of medications abroad?