UrBC, Moscow, October 15, 2018. The UK refused to have the raw stuffs needed to make painkillers exported to Russia, TASS refers to Moscow Endocrine Plant’s Director-General Mikhail Fonarev as stating.

‘We depend on imported opioid substances 100% at the moment. These means that absolutely everything - morphines as well as codeine and thebaine stuffs - needs to be purchased abroad. Spain is one of our suppliers, for example. There are other countries as well, but the UK is one country that refused to supply any stuffs to Russia,’ he is quoted as saying.

According to Fonarev, introducing a full production cycle within Russia would allow for a 15% to 20% decrease in the price of the pharmaceuticals in this market segment.

‘We have to buy the raw stuffs for our painkillers in the countries that have been actively imposing sanctions on Russia lately. All of which might have a negative impact on Russia’s drug safety,’ Fonarev said.