The head of the Department of Medicines Circulation of the Russian Ministry of Health became a defendant in a criminal case

According to the court, another defendant in the case is the director of the Indian pharmaceutical company Jodas Expoim, Parsad Singh Shashi Shankar. At the request of the investigator, the court sent him to a pretrial detention center - also for two months. Shankar is charged under Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Law enforcement officials have not officially reported the plot of the case or the amount of the possible bribe.

"The Ministry is in contact with law enforcement agencies and will provide full and comprehensive support to the investigation to establish all the circumstances of the case," the press service of the Russian Ministry of Health reported. Vademecum sent a request to Jodas Expoim asking for a comment on the situation.

According to the Pharmaceutical Herald, which cites sources familiar with the situation, security forces detained the defendants on May 26 in the office of an Indian pharmaceutical company. Allegedly, the head of Jodas Expoim wanted to negotiate with representatives of the Ministry of Health so that the regulator would not cancel the registration of the drugs.

The first reports of the detention of Jodas Expoim co-founder Parsad Singh Shashi Shankar appeared in the media in the last ten days of March 2025. At that time, the Telegram channel Baza wrote that, according to its data, the entrepreneur, his wife, and several other employees of the company were brought in for questioning. According to media reports, searches were also conducted in the office of Jodas Expoim and in Singh Shashi's house. It was assumed that the investigation was related to the "supply of counterfeit drugs" to the domestic market. However, the company itself denied the detention of the CEO at the time. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Investigative Committee of Russia told Vademecum that same month that they were not investigating the case. The FSB did not respond to the request.

In early March 2025, Nikolai Bespalov, Development Director of the analytical company RNC Pharma, explained to Vademecum that Jodas Expoim is “a fairly noticeable player on the Russian pharmaceutical market with quite a long history.” Bespalov noted that in 2024, the company supplied drugs under 78 trade names to the Russian market: “We are talking about a volume of 5.76 million packages worth about 6.73 billion rubles (in distributor prices, including VAT). Compared to 2023, the physical volume of deliveries decreased by 1.7%, while the ruble volume increased by 37.6%.” Nikolai Bespalov clarified that “such a spread is associated with the company’s gradual reorientation to a more expensive range.”

Since the beginning of 2025, the regulator has suspended at least 14 drug registration certificates for Jodas Expoim and cancelled another one. The decision was explained by the discovered data on the company's non-compliance with the requirements of the rules of good manufacturing practice and violation of licensing requirements.

Thus, in February, the Ministry of Health issued six orders to suspend registration certificates. The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation then told Vademecum that Jodas Expoim “does not have valid GMP certificates,” and the last inspection of the site took place in 2023.

In April, the Russian Ministry of Health decided to suspend the registration certificates of eight more drugs, including the second drug in Russia after the original Evrisdi with risdiplam - Diplam. The reason for the suspension was the presence of inaccurate documents and data in the registration dossier.

On May 28, the Ministry of Health also cancelled the state registration of a drug for the treatment of type II diabetes mellitus, Semaglutide J, and excluded it from the State Register of Medicines. The decision was made following an inspection of the registration dossier and "based on the failure to take measures to prevent violations of Russian legislation." The drug was the cheapest domestic analogue of Ozempic (semaglutide) from the Danish Novo Nordisk. In March, the FAS agreed on a price of 3,954 rubles, which is 9% lower than Russian drugs and 32% cheaper than the original drug.

Later, on May 30, the Ministry of Health cancelled another 10 registration certificates for Jodas Expoim drugs.