Russia has developed two domestic medical drugs that can help in the treatment of rare and severe diseases. These are spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and ankylosing spondylitis, better known as Bekhterev's disease.
SMA is a congenital genetic disease in which a person develops progressive muscle weakness with age. Over time, the skeleton is also affected, scoliosis and chest deformities develop, and since the patient has difficulty moving, problems with the joints also arise.
Only three drugs against SMA were previously known in world medicine. The most frequently produced of these, Spinraza, also known as nusinersen, is considered one of the most expensive drugs in the world. In Russia, for example, Spinraza from Biogen costs 5.13 million rubles per package. For Russians up to and including the age of 19, treatment is provided by the Krug Dobra Foundation from deductions from the increased personal income tax rate for citizens with incomes over 5 million rubles per year. When patients grow up, the drugs are no longer affordable: according to the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Patient Assistance Fund as of February 2024, one in three of the 264 Russians with SMA over the age of 19 did not receive treatment.
Now, Russia has its own drug for SMA called lantensens — and it is already registered in the State Register of Medicines. It will be produced by the biotechnology company Generium. A company representative told Vedomosti that the price of the Russian drug for SMA will be cheaper, but did not disclose the price.
The second drug is still awaiting registration in the State Register of Medicines. INN seniprutug will help stop chronic ankylosing spondylitis in the body, also known as Bekhterev's disease. In this disease, the human immune system mistakes cartilage tissue and joints of the body for foreign bodies and begins to block them. The joints may completely lose mobility, and the patient's vertebrae may fuse together, while the person experiences problems with movement in space and experiences pain.
This is caused by pathological T-lymphocytes that attack the body's own healthy cells. So far, no one has been able to block them without harming the patient's immunity as a whole, but Russian doctors from Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University of the Ministry of Health of Russia have succeeded. They developed the drug INN seniprutug — initial clinical studies have shown that it stops the disease without reducing the patient's immune activity and vulnerability. This is the first such drug against this disease in the world.
BIOCAD may begin to produce INN seniprutug industrially after its registration. It is known that as of 2022, according to the scientific journal "Modern Rheumatology", more than 410 thousand patients with this chronic disease lived in Russia.
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