Aim is to generate a high-tech service company to progress nation’s biopharma industry.
Quintiles is teaming up with the investment organization Russian Venture Company (RVC) Biofund to support expansion of clinical development services within the Russian Federation. The partners say they expect to announce plans for specific joint ventures in the near future, but the overall aim will be to address Russia’s healthcare initiatives as laid out in its government’s Healthcare Development Concept to 2020, which it drafted in 2009.
“This partnership will help create high-technology services companies within the Russian Federation to advance biopharma, using RVC Biofund venture capital investments,” explains Egor Beketov, RVC Biofund CEO.
Quintiles has been carrying out clinical trials in Russia since 1996. “With a population of almost 140 million, Russia is under-represented in terms of clinical development activity and over-represented in terms of unmet medical needs,” comments Ben Cons, global vp for corporate development at Quintiles. “Quintiles’ goal is to address both of these issues in partnership with RVC Biofund, which has experience in starting businesses in Russia and capital to invest in the biopharma sector.”
RVC is a Russian government-established fund that invests government capital through VC funds created in partnership with private investors. RVC Biofund was established in early 2011, to focus specifically on innovative biopharma and related service companies operating in the biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical fields.
