There are three key figures around which the newfound German love for the Sputnik vaccine moves. The in-depth analysis by Pierluigi Mennitti from Berlin
There are three key figures around which the newfound German love for the Sputnik vaccine moves. Three Russian men, who could not be more different from each other, will be at the center of the attention of a plethora of German politicians in the coming weeks. From the President of Bavaria, Markus Soder, who first announced the forthcoming signing of a pre-contract for 2.5 million doses of the Russian vaccine, to Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn who acts on behalf of the entire country, to others regional presidents, especially those from the East who have long been well disposed towards the Moscow solution, are now running in no particular order.
In the great game of vaccines, three figures are now emerging destined to take on an important role in Germany, waiting for Europe, through its drug agency Ema, to conclude the complex ongoing review and give the green light to Sputnik. And if the Commission has said it does not want to sign any pre-contract before the EMA decision, the Germans will move in the opposite direction, alone, albeit in no particular order.
For Alexej Repik, the 41-year-old owner of R-Pharm, the German one could be the long-awaited turning point. Six years ago I lifted the historic pharmaceutical plant in Illertissen, in Bavarian Swabia, from bankruptcy, a symbol of Germany’s decline as the “pharmacy of the world”. Founded in 1860, it began producing medicines over 70 years later, in 1934. But the glorious times were already over in the 1970s, when the American Pfizer took over and failed to turn it into a production factory. In the decade following German reunification, Illertissen went through its entire decline, until the interruption of production in 2010. In 2014, an investor appeared from Russia that no one had ever heard of: Alexej Repik. The first years of his R-Pharm did not confirm the promised success, indeed, in 2018 the company recorded accounts in deep red. But with Covid everything can change. Germany is struggling like the rest of Europe behind the shortage of vaccines and the young Russian billionaire promises with Sputnik V to fill the hunger for doses.
Repik is regarded in Russia as a kind of wunderkind. He has everything it takes to make his way through the Muscovite jungle, starting with excellent contacts with the Kremlin, a constant that we will also find in the other two protagonists. Smart, fast, a lover of risk and obsessed with work, almost on the verge of hyperactivity, this is how those who know him describe him. Someone remembers him a frequenter of poker tournaments in the 2000s. Dust of chance that must have stuck on him. At 16, as a student, he paid for his studies by working in a hospital in Moscow, where he was hired by a company specializing in the distribution of medicines. It is there, according to one of his stories, that he understands the pharmaceutical business in Russia: hospitals need medicines and Western companies are impacting the obstacles of bureaucracy. So, at the age of 21, he entered the sector and founded R-Pharm. It was 2001.
Since then, growth has been impetuous, from a niche supplier to what Forbes called “the best Russian pharmaceutical company”, thanks in part to its ties to the political world that matters. Direct relations with Putin are intense, as evidenced by the 18 official meetings in the last 4 years recorded on the official website of the president, but already at the time of the presidency Medvedev Rupnik distinguished himself as an exponent of the new generation of entrepreneurs unrelated to the old gas and oil oligarchy . The link with power is now strengthened by his leadership of the entrepreneurial association Delovaya Rossiya, considered close to the Putinian party. And great impetus for R-Pharm came from a state contract for the supply of special medicines, such as those for the treatment of HIV. Sputnik production at home will be based on two factories, one already operational in Yaroslavl, the other under construction in Moscow. A collaboration has been signed with Astra Zeneca for the production of the Oxford vaccine destined for foreign countries and billions of euros have been invested in the development of its own vaccine with the Moscow State University. In 11 years, the turnover has tripled to 82 billion rubles, just under one billion euros. On the other hand, Repik’s assets amount to two billion euros. Which is now betting everything on relaunching the Illertissen factory to supply Bavaria, Germany and Europe with Sputnik. A collaboration has been signed with Astra Zeneca for the production of the Oxford vaccine destined for foreign countries and billions of euros have been invested in the development of its own vaccine with the Moscow State University. In 11 years, the turnover has tripled to 82 billion rubles, just under one billion euros. On the other hand, Repik’s assets amount to two billion euros. Which is now betting everything on relaunching the Illertissen factory to supply Bavaria, Germany and Europe with Sputnik. A collaboration has been signed with Astra Zeneca for the production of the Oxford vaccine destined for foreign countries and billions of euros have been invested in the development of its own vaccine with the Moscow State University. In 11 years, the turnover has tripled to 82 billion rubles, just under one billion euros. On the other hand, Repik’s assets amount to two billion euros. Which is now betting everything on relaunching the Illertissen factory to supply Bavaria, Germany and Europe with Sputnik.
One of the bonds that Rupnik has made in recent times is with Kirill Dmitriev, the director of the RDIF state investment fund, who has committed his resources to the development of Sputnik V. Dmitriev and the man who advertises the Russian vaccine around for the world, it mitigates the criticisms of Europeans and Americans, negotiates with local governments and drug agencies, stipulates contracts. He was born in Ukraine, in Kiev, and his curriculum tells the story of a businessman and of the world: he studied in the United States, at Stanford and at Harvard Business School, from the end of the nineties he joined Goldman Sachs first. , then to McKinsey.
The American experience has made him the ideal man to lead the fund since 2011 which, with almost 8 billion euros of capital, is looking for investors and partners to give strength to the Russian economy. Since the pandemic broke out, the RDIF has become a sort of vanguard of Russian Covid diplomacy, financing oxygen machines to be sent to the US, investing in a Russian-Japanese drug that was supposed to mitigate the course of the infection, developing tests fast for export. Until the Gamaleya Institute vaccine appeared on the horizon. In April the decision to invest here. The patriotic name he gave it to him, Kirill Dmitriev: Sputnik recalls the epic of the Soviet space triumph, when the Americans were blown away by the launch of the first satellite into space.
And the reference to the Soviet Union should also sound welcome to the third character, Alexander Ginzburg, the 69-year-old biologist from Moscow, director of the Gamaleya Institute who developed Sputnik. He belongs to the old guard of Soviet scientists, a real resource dispersed after the collapse of the USSR in many streams. The diaspora of scientists, who emigrated almost everywhere in the West, from the USA to Europe to Israel. Ginzburg decided to stay in Moscow, entered Gamaleya in 1982 and took over the reins in 1997.
He was responsible for the decision to specialize the institute in the development of vaccines and in his laboratories a first preparation against MERS, the coronavirus that had hit Saudi Arabia was studied in 2012. A viral vector vaccine, such as Sputnik V.
The elderly scientist is a frank and direct type, those who attend him amusedly report his favorite sayings, which in some way would also explain the not exactly orthodox ways in which the vaccine reached the goal of authorization in Russia, even before they came. all the planned experiments have been completed: “Whoever wants to create something new but follows the established rules, is destined to fail”.
So Ginzburg had all the collaborators of his prestigious institute vaccinated, then his family members down to his little granddaughter. In the end, Katerina Tikhonova, Putin’s youngest daughter, director of the Innopraktika science foundation, was also vaccinated. Shortly before the Russian drug agency approved Sputnik V, journalist Natalija Popova had signed a report on Rossija state TV announcing that she had tested the vaccine before the trial. Popova is no ordinary journalist. She and she the deputy director of Innopraktika and fellow student of Tikhonova. She and her wife of Kirill Dmitriev. A long chain of relationships and families, which does not surprise those who know the Moscow “arcana imperii” and along which the history of the Russian vaccine against Covid, which Germans now so much like, has developed.
