Russia's nascent commercial drug industry could get a shot in the arm from a US$163-million project announced yesterday. But the project - which is partly bankrolled by a state-owned non-profit corporation - faces a challenging future, despite government backing.

The Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (known as Rusnano) in Moscow, along with a yet-to-be announced co-investor, plans to fund the development of up to 15 potential drug molecules that have unique mechanisms of action, taking them from the preclinical development stage through to Phase 2 clinical trials.

"We expect that of the 15 compounds, a few will support the investment," says Andrey Ivaschenko, chairman of ChemRar, the Moscow-based pharmaceutical and biotechnology incubator that will provide the first five target molecules. Although the investment is not a huge sum, he notes, a compound can be developed to the Phase 2 clinical stage in Russia for $5-10 million.

Development and commercialization rights for one of them, an anti-HIV compound, were transferred to ChemRar from the pharmaceutical company Roche, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. Ivaschenko expects the final portfolio to contain compounds obtained from both foreign and domestic companies.

"This is a sort of new model for Russia because it also includes projects that were abandoned in the West for non-scientific reasons," he says. pushes for domestic drug development

More information in "Russia pushes for domestic drug development", Published online 2 July 2010 | Nature http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100702/full/news.2010.329.html