Each medicine is its active ingredient, the ingredient it cures. The drug chain starts from there and for those who feed it, a war in the heart of Europe means above all higher prices. “With the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, the first theme”, to date the most concrete, “is the increase in costs for our industry, which will affect the final price of our products”. But “there is also another theme” in the analysis of Michele Gavino, managing director of Fis-Fabbrica italiana sintetici, a tricolor Spa that has been producing active ingredients for pharmaceutical companies in the world since 1957: “When you hear the Prime Minister say that you could come to think with a view to rationing – explains the manager in an interview with Adnkronos Salute – then you have to prepare for the eventuality that not everything can be provided with the same priorities “. Because rationing means choice: “First the life-saving drugs, then all the others”.
Gavino speaks from the USA, from New York, where the ‘Dcat Week’ is underway (21-24 March) promoted by the Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association-Dcat, one of the main annual international events dedicated to the actors of biopharmaceutical production. For a company like Fis – roots in Montecchio Maggiore in the province of Vicenza, but long branches reaching “over 70 countries in the world, both with custom products for pharmaceutical companies, and with generic or veterinary products – the event of the Great Apple is “a precious opportunity to explain the situation we are experiencing to the industries operating on the other side of the ocean.” An increase in costs that inevitably raises the price to the customer and “certainly not for speculation”, he is keen to specify the Ad.
“In the meetings with the companies at the Dcat we are trying to make it clear that we hope this is a temporary surcharge, an exceptional temporary increase – he underlines – hoping that it will not weigh too much on our result”.
With Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Gavino explains, “the critical issues we are experiencing overlap with those we were already facing from the first half of 2021, largely generated by the Covid-19 pandemic and related above all to the chain of supply, particularly with regard to China, but also India. Now the main difficulties that are added naturally concern transport, because transport is heavily affected by the cost of fuels that is exploding in Europe – but perhaps even more so in Italy – and that the Government has managed to calm down to a minimum “.
“Then there is the issue of energy, primary for us – highlights the manager – because our processes are by definition ‘energy-intensive’: we make a fairly heavy use of both electricity and gas, so energy costs have become another issue that we are managing with customers, informing them that in the coming months the cost of energy may also have an impact on the cost of the product we supply to them “.
But to obscure the horizon there is also the specter, hopefully distant, of rationing to which Prime Minister Mario Draghi has explicitly referred in recent weeks. “If we enter that logic – reasons the CEO of Fis – we will have to be ready to react to be able, if necessary, to devote ourselves to the most important productions, leaving out those that are less. In other words, giving priority to life-saving active ingredients. rather than others who are not. ” Therefore, in perspective, “there may also be an impact on the type of active ingredients that can be guaranteed to customers”. If rationing is “possibly for an even stricter application of sanctions against Russia”, then “something will have to be given up and it will be a question of deciding what to leave behind”. But “at the moment – assures Gavino – gas, for example, is not lacking. Russia is constantly sending it in the quantities envisaged by the contracts”.
FIS has no direct customers in Russia and Ukraine. “We had someone in the area a few years ago, but we are not following them at the moment”, says the CEO, noting however that in the Big Pharma area there is and continues to use active ingredients: “In 2010 – recalls – Russia launched a project aimed precisely at strengthening the national pharmaceutical industry, and almost all the European and American Big Pharmas have built factories in the country. Factories that are still working regularly, given the type of essential production “, having to do with people’s health and very often with life.
The Vicenza-based company, however, focuses its eyes on the geography of the battlefield because of the raw materials: “Some of them come from there,” says Gavino. “For example, we make a fairly intensive use of palladium, a product that largely comes from Ukraine and Russia, although for now we have a good reserve that should cover us for the whole year. We are instead a little more beware of ammonia, another raw material that comes mainly from these countries. There are also alternatives for procurement at a European level, but at different prices “, points out the manager. In short, there is a risk of adding an ‘expensive raw material’ to ‘expensive transport’ and ‘expensive energy’.
For the CEO “it is essential to be able to share all these problems with the stakeholders, in order to identify possible solutions to be implemented”. If “at the company level, we immediately set up a crisis committee that is managing the various critical issues and hypothesizing various alternative scenarios, to be ready in the event that it will be necessary to take some radical decision – reports Gavino – through Confindustria, in particular the association of in Vicenza where we work, we are attending all the tables that have been set up and that inform us on a daily basis. Finally, we hope that the regulatory bodies continue to act – hopes the manager – in the awareness of how much these variables affect the operations and profitability of companies operating on the market “.
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