Russia’s industry and trade ministry is scrambling to produce a replacement for Viagra, after the U.S. manufacturer of the popular erectile dysfunction remedy halted supplies last year following the invasion of Ukraine, reports said.
According to Reuters, sanctions levied by the United States, Britain, the European Union and others against Russia do not apply to medicine and medical equipment, but Western pharmaceutical companies warned early on that supplying medicine may be complicated by economic sanctions targeting the country and its major banks, and many companies have voluntarily reduced or ended their business dealings in Russia.
The U.S. pharmaceutical company Viatris, a spinoff of Pfizer, announced that it would halt planned investments and all clinical trials in Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, but continued to supply critical medicines.
‘In 2022, Viatris LLC informed us about the suspension of the supply of the Viagra drug in the dosage form of a tablet,’ the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade said.
The Russian ministry immediately vowed to ensure the domestic manufacture of drugs for the country’s men with the same ‘active ingredient’, stressing this was already underway, the ministry told Interfax on Wednesday, also that Russian companies have the ‘technological possibility’ to manufacture generic medication that contains the substance called Sildenafil, sold under the brand name Viagra.
Thirty-six Russian companies had been issued registration certificates to produce a Russian erectile dysfunction pill, which appears to be high in demand, Russian news agency Tass reported.
Sales of the erectile disfunction drug in the same period had risen 15 per cent as Russia’s health ministry claimed pharmacies were not running low on stocks of the pill.
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