Expo 2020 in Dubai: Russian Pharma Industry Adapts to Pandemic, Open to Cooperation With Arab World

Russia's pharmaceutical industry has managed not only to adapt to the new challenges brought forth amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but continues to remain open to cooperation with the country's partners in the Arab world, said Prof. Dmitry Kudlay, vice president of new medical technologies implementation at Russian pharmaceutical company Generium.

Kudlay delivered this remark at a roundable discussion on matters of healthcare and pharmaceutical industry development that was held during a meeting of the Russian-Arab Business Council this week at Expo 2020 in Dubai.

The participants of the council's session also focused their attention on the matter of biotechnology development, concluding that the global trend in emphasising “human survival”, which has served as a powerful driver for such development for the past 30 years, is rapidly shifting toward an emphasis on “human enhancement”.

“According to a forecast for Russia's scientific and technological development till year 2030, cellular, genome and post-genome technologies will serve as foundation for preventing the spread of various types of diseases, including transmissible infections of humans and animals,” Kudlay remarked.

The experts surmised that the prospects of biotechnological development in the context of medical practice is going to be determined by factors such as high-throughput analysis methods of genomes, transcriptomes, proteomes and metabolomes, as well as the computer modelling of the structures of molecules and processes in living systems, and the development of the technologies of synthetic biology, metabolic engineering and bioengineering.

“For the global biotechnological development in the mid- and long-term perspective, it is important not to miss the window of opportunity that has been afforded to us by global cooperation related to challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Kudlay stated.

Turning his attention to the pandemic itself, he also insisted that “only through joint efforts and sharing experience we can achieve new victories in the struggle against COVID-19”.

The 13th meeting of the Russian-Arab Business Council session was held on the 25th and 26th of January.