Experts ring all possible bells: the forthcoming merger of large pharmaceutical companies will lead to higher prices for domestic medicines. The new structure, formed under Rostekh, will control the main factories and pharmacy chains, arbitrarily setting the selling price of the drugs. It will become the main supplier of medicines for the needs of the state.

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the richest. Medicines are needed by all, they can not be abandoned. State programs of support of medicine, rehabilitation of scientific developments are constantly in operation. Every year, the country spends astronomical hundreds of billions of rubles just for purchasing medicines for budgetary institutions.

The production of medicines in Russia has long been in private hands. The main players are two young businessmen: Alexey Repik (R-Pharm) and
Alexandrov Vinokurov ("Marathon Group"), behind each of which there are serious people, allowing them to occupy a leading position in business. Repik, as the leader of "Business Russia", has a pass to many offices of various ministries and departments. Many are ready to help him, few want to stand in his way. Circumstances allowed Alexei Evgenyevich to become the "king of state orders" - in 2016 R-Pharm has mastered 43 billion rubles. And this amount is growing.

Vinokurov is also not simple. He is a relative of the country's chief diplomat, a close friend of the head of Rostek, a large state corporation that deals with almost everything in Russia. The presence of such connections allowed Vinokurov to build his business empire in just 3 years, with the pharmacy, medicine and pharmaceuticals taking the lion's share of assets. How he built his business is known from numerous publications in the press - aggressive mergers and acquisitions, scandalous lawsuits. Until the end of the year, the merger of Vinokourov's assets and state-owned factories run by Nacimbo will end. Two big players will not break each other's monopoly, as they, most likely, have long ago shared responsibilities and markets.

It would seem that the bad thing is that two young and promising Russian businessmen solve issues of production and supply of citizens with high-quality medicines that are produced on the territory of the country. The devil is in the details. These people are not entirely Russian. Undoubtedly, they are citizens of Russia, but their interests and ties extend far beyond the borders of the fatherland.

Alexander Vinokurov was educated in Cambridge, worked in London at the office of Morgan Stanley, and in 2010 came to the US private equity fund TPG Capital for the position of vice president of the Russian office. In addition to his former place of work, his family also has a family that lives on American soil for most of the year.

Alexey Repik was seen at the inauguration of Donald Trump. In the United States, in 2011 and 2014, respectively, R-Pharm Overseas, Inc. and R-Pharm US LLC were registered. The latter is based in Princeton, New Jersey and is focused on investments. Now he is responsible for import substitution in Russian pharmaceuticals. How exactly? He purchases from his foreign friends materials, packaging and containers with Western names, and our stuffing, made seemingly and under control, but uncontrolled. Such an effective production procedure he mastered at his facilities in the Yaroslavl region.

It is interesting that the facts of monopolization and signs of concomitant corruption go away from the siloviki, although they are even claimed by foreign NGOs. Transparency International asked a number of state services and agencies to check the notorious "Nazimbo". The company is suspected of a large number of violations and unfounded enrichment. Soon it will become the property of Vinokourov, and his biography does not allow to say about the intention to lead a responsible and honest business.

It turns out that the life of a Russian patient is in the hands of Repik and Vinokourov, who will set prices for medicines at their discretion, and most importantly, to determine the range of medicines entering medical facilities. Prices, it seems, will grow on all medicines, from green to oncoproteins. The quality of the drugs was not the best, it will remain.