Drops not in the eye

Olga Shpichko: we have come across cases when eye drops were added to shampoo for hair growth

Olga Shpichko, Managing Director for Investment Activities at Rusnano, told Snob why Russian companies invest in Western business and when an anti-aging remedy will appear.

Photo: Tatiana Hesso

– We live in a very interesting time. What seemed impossible yesterday is reality today. And of course, I want to live longer: to hold out until, for example, the replacement and modification of organs in order to increase the life expectancy of a person. Is life extension the main trend in pharmaceuticals?

– In general, yes. And in order to lengthen the active years of life, at least it is necessary to diagnose problems. And you need to diagnose it as early as possible. My department at Rusnano specializes in projects in the field of pharmaceuticals, medical technologies and the creation of services.

– Is technology and service actually the creation of infrastructure? What is infrastructure in pharmaceuticals?

– When we started working in this area, we set a goal for ourselves – the fight against socially significant diseases. For example, with oncology and cardiovascular diseases. These can be rapid tests to detect the disease at an early stage, medical equipment that allows for timely diagnosis.

Among the projects that we are very proud of is the project to create a network of positron emission tomography (PET) centers, which are a recognized technology in world medicine. This is a diagnosis that allows you to detect processes in the body associated with the initial stage of cancer. We know that cancer cells consume glucose most actively. And already the early processes of metabolic disorders, inflammation in oncological processes can be diagnosed by PET.

Q: Supporting something that has been developed for years and rarely leads to results, is there no fear of catching a downtrend?

– Of course, there is, as in any technology, even not related to medicine. Because the world is not standing still, research is continuing in various fields, and we probably cannot keep up to the extent that we would like.

– And then how to cope with this risk? The money is big, the years go by. I know many promising projects that fail even at the research stage.

– Any projects related to the field of healthcare carry additional risks, including the risks of failure to pass clinical trials. And in the world statistics, only one out of a thousand drugs reaches the final stage, and indeed, not so many breakthrough drugs are born. You can only insure yourself by a deep analysis of world trends, understanding biology, chemistry.

– Why are you engaged in the development of the pharmaceutical field in Rusnano? Did you have any distribution inside Rusnano? Your colleagues have very different investment portfolios.

– Before Rusnano, I worked in a company that was engaged in the development and supply of medical equipment. She was also the coordinator of the nuclear medicine project at Rosatom. And in 2008, when Rusnano was just being formed, I was invited to look at the field of healthcare and what can be done in this area. Since Rusnano, investing money in high technologies, understood that projects with a socially significant effect were needed. And even if they do not become highly profitable, do not bring Rusnano a lot of money, they will be useful and understandable to people.

– How did you search for projects and how long did you form a portfolio?

– Almost all of my team has been working here since the very beginning, since 2009-2010. It was a period of active search, when I toured our institutes, large companies, communicated with staff, looked for where we could cooperate. We have reviewed about 3 thousand projects to form our portfolio.

– How many projects do you have in your portfolio now?

– Taking into account the fact that we sold something, closed something, we have 8 projects left. Two of them are American – Biomark Capital and Domain Associates.

– How risky are they?

– If you rank my portfolio by the level of risk, then one of the high–risk projects is participation in the American Biomark Capital fund, which specializes in investments in early-stage companies. Rusnano's share in the fund is 40%, but we are a limited partner – it is managed by a management company, and we are waiting for the result of these investments. Our main motivation for such cooperation was the transfer of American technologies to Russia. As a result, one of the technologies for creating vaccines is now being used by our portfolio company Nanolek.

– What have you learned from the Americans during this time?

– We watched how they choose projects, monitor their development, how ready they are for risk. We have seen how important a comprehensive analysis and a deep understanding of the technologies in which you invest are. The partners closely followed what was happening with similar technologies in other markets, in other companies.

– And what do we not have in pharmaceuticals, in our country, what do Americans have? We have a lot of different defining aspects in this area and different legislation. At the same time, Rusnano is a major player who is listened to at the state level.

Over the past ten years, the legislation in Russia has changed a lot, it is approaching Western standards. The regulation of the production and testing of pharmaceuticals in the West is much more stringent compared to the production in Russia.

– What are the consequences of these changes?

– It takes more time to bring the product to market. But at the same time we insure ourselves against low-quality medicines. Let me give you an example: now we are planning to build a plant together with Pfizer in the Kaluga region. The most difficult and long stage is the process of technology transfer, because you need to comply with a huge number of regulations, volumes of descriptions. If the construction of a building and equipping with equipment takes about two years, then the transfer of technological regulations will take several more years.

– Is the success in the production of new drugs in the West due to strict requirements or investing a lot of money in the development of the pharmaceutical sector?

– It's hard to say which influences more. But, of course, pharmaceutical and state-owned companies and funds in the West invest significantly more money than in Russia. This is a fact, unfortunately.

– Which project from your portfolio can be the most understandable for a wide range of consumers?

– There are "Skulachev ions" implemented by a group of scientists at Moscow University. The idea is to slow down the aging process. A family is working on the project: father and sons, and they have achieved significant success.

– Is it difficult to do business with scientists at all?

- Yes. The process of our communication has been and remains quite complicated. Colleagues have a lot of interesting ideas, this requires long-term fundamental research. And this is very cool and interesting, but we are a financial investor and are primarily focused on return on investment. The study, however, unfolded very widely, but we managed to land the plans and highlight the final product as an intermediate result – eye drops in order to achieve self-sufficiency. Now these drops bring about 170 million rubles a year.

– Is it only the drops that bring so much?

– Only drops, only from two nosologies. Cosmetics occupy a small segment in this share of revenue. In this product line, the company recently introduced the active substance mitovitan to the market, presented a new product based on it, properly packaged. This is an activator that can be mixed into any cosmetic product.

– That is, it increases the beneficial properties of cosmetic preparations, accelerates the delivery of components in the human body?

- Yes. We have come across cases when the products of "Iona Skulachev" began to be used for other purposes – for example, eye drops were added to shampoo for hair growth.

I know that drops that relieve fatigue and redness of the eyes are used as a soothing agent for the skin.

Yes, they have a vasoconstrictive effect.

– So also the hair grows better, it turns out?

- Yes. The second part of the project is the so-called "capsule of systemic action". A substance that is taken orally to slow down the aging process of the body. After all, any disease, the same oncology is, in general, the aging process, the wear of cells that stop fighting with other cells. But the most important thing here is not to overdo it. Because this active substance, if you change the dosage, can become a poison.

– Pharmaceuticals, medicine, if you look back, is associated with stages, revolutions. The discovery of penicillin, for example, immediately divided the world into "before" and "after". Are there any similar productions going on now that could end in a revolution?

– Now the task, rather, is to create drugs for so–called orphan diseases - rare ones that do not have effective methods of treatment and patients are doomed. In the same oncology, some drugs have been created, but there are no separate types of drugs for small groups of the population. I still expect breakthroughs in these areas.

– Are companies shifting there because these are free niches?

– Companies go because, despite a fairly small coverage group, we are talking about quite expensive medicines.

– I can't help but ask you about the Kagocel portfolio project. Why do you think this case so outraged the public?

– This is one of the antiviral drugs that stimulates our immune system to produce antibodies against the virus. When evaluating the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals, it is better to focus on the opinion of the professional community, its indicator can be considered a high economic assessment of the project. We left the company with a large return – about 40%, and this is probably the best "exit" of Rusnano from portfolio companies. The amount of output turned out to be almost twice the amount of investment in this project.

– How many years have you been working on this project?

– About three years, a factory was built in the Kaluga region. And when we entered, he occupied 2% of the Russian market of immunomodulators, and when we left – already 20%, that is, explosive growth. Now the sales level of Kagocel is over 4 billion rubles. And another important factor that we like about this project is that talented people have reached out there. This is a rare case, because in Russia, unfortunately, good teams have been lost, and they have to be collected bit by bit. Thus, Kagocel has shown an explosive growth in market share, a good exit, and modern pharmaceutical production has been created. And with our help, a very strong team of scientists and businessmen has been formed, in my opinion, one of the best in the country.

– Do you think about how your projects can affect a person's life? Would you like to change the world?

– I'm a more down-to-earth person, probably. I just want our projects to help people live more comfortably, cure this or that disease, saturate the market with this or that drug, which will be either a little cheaper or a little more effective than existing analogues, that is, make a small, feasible contribution to the development of our healthcare.

– What are you personally strong in?

– I think I have a good intuition, a love of order in everything and a willingness to take risks.

– I've talked to six of your colleagues, and you're the only woman. At the same time, one of the men told me: "We deal more with mathematics, and women are more often guided by intuition." Do you feel gender stereotypes?

– Probably, at the initial stage of work at Rusnano there was a healthy amount of skepticism about me. But the prejudices disappeared when we started making successful exits, when products began to appear.

– And how have you changed yourself during your time at private equity?

I've become tougher. At the beginning of my journey, I had more emotions, I was more worried. Now good luck and failures cause less emotions.

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