Connected pharmaceutical firm to import COVID-19 vaccine, produce generic

The Ukrainian pharmaceutical company Lekkhim has been
selected to import the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine CoronaVac, as well as produce a
generic version of it in 2022, according to Valeriy Pechayev, the head of the
firm’s supervisory board. Lekkhim and Sinovac Biotech have signed a memorandum
of cooperation to produce flu and COVID-19 vaccines based on the Chinese firm’s
technology, Pechayev said on Jan. 11, as reported by the babel.ua news site.
Production is expected to start in the second half of 2022.

Pechayev is an ally to Raisa Bohatyriova, a former
health minister notorious for corruption, as reported by the Patients of
Ukraine civic organization. It accused Health Minister Maksym Stepanov of
singlehandedly selecting Lekkhim to import the COVID-19 vaccine, illegally
interfering with the work of the state enterprise that it supposed to handle
such selections.

This state company, Medical Purchases of Ukraine,
reached agreements with several companies to import COVID-19 vaccines.
Moreover, “other producers can’t enter the Ukrainian market. This is being
blocked personally by minister Stepanov,” said Patients of Ukraine, as reported
by the life.pravda.com.ua news site.

Stepanov explained to a Jan. 9 press briefing the
reasoning by the government’s controversial ban on the sale of household items
and clothing as part of the nationwide lockdown, which took effect on Jan. 8.
“If we prohibit the sale of certain goods in a store, then people – for whom
they are needed – will order them on the Internet and won’t come into contact
with others, putting them at risk of being infected. So out of 100 people who
could have been in a supermarket and in contact with each other, only 40 will
be there. The likelihood that they will be infected or infect others will be
reduced by several times,” Stepanov said.

New infections of the COVID-19 disease caused by the
coronavirus reached 5,116 on Jan. 11, Stepanov reported this morning. That’s
compared to 4,288 on Jan. 10 and 5,011 on Jan. 9. An estimated 184 people died
from COVID-19 on Jan. 11, compared to 68 on Jan. 10 and 99 on Jan. 9. An
estimated 15,951 patients recovered, compared to 4,819 on Jan. 10 and 5,292 on
Jan. 9.

Zenon Zawada: It was
inevitable under the Zelensky administration that well-connected people would
earn business from the COVID-19 disease, particular those with ties to the
Yanukovych administration. Bohatyriova not only served under Yanukovych, but is
considered a close ally to billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, who is widely suspected
to be among the sponsors of the
Zelensky political machine. We can only expect this pattern to continue.

COVID-19 infections began dropping weeks ahead of
the lockdown, but the Zelensky administration decided to move forward with it
anyhow. We view the economic losses from this will be minimal considering
millions of Ukrainians are typically resting or on vacation the first two to
three weeks of January. Moreover, the extreme measures – such as prohibiting
the instore sale of commonplace goods – will provide valuable data in
contemplating such measures, not only for Ukraine’s government but for others
as well.