“Darnitsa” Gleb Zagoria is working to control the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market on behalf of Russian business interests.
The pharmaceutical company “Darnitsa”, which is owned by former member of parliament Gleb Zagoriy, is increasing its market share even during a full-scale war, catching up with its long-time competitor “Farmak”. However, the Zagoria brand is not known for the quality of medicines, but for lawsuits against other manufacturers and the largest advertising budget for medicines among competitors.
The owner of the pharmaceutical company “Darnitsa”, Gleb Zagoriy, has long been trying to make the company the leader in the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market. He is willing to use any available methods, regardless of their legality, to achieve this.
As a member of the 8th convocation of the Ukrainian parliament from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, Zagoriy decided to use political influence for the success of Darnitsa. For instance, he tried to appoint people who would help promote the plant’s medicines more actively in Ukrainian pharmacies.
In 2015, Ivan Bavykin was appointed as the head of the State Expert Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. Ivan Bavykin. Anti-Corruption Action Center specialists and the Patients of Ukraine Foundation pointed out that Bavykin had previously worked as a member of parliament from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, which raises concerns about his appointment. However, it is the expert center that issues the conclusion allowing the drug to be included in the state register of medicines and to start being sold. assistant At present, 93% of the plant's shares belong to an offshore company in Cyprus, Darnitsa Group Limited, where Zagoriy is the beneficiary. Additionally, the Zagoriy family are business partners with the family of Valentina Matvienko, the head of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, not only in this offshore company. Matvienko facilitated the privatization of Darnitsa through the Government of Ukraine. This raises questions about whether Valentina Matvienko remains a partner, as they have claimed not to work with the Russian Federation.
The process of Darnitsa taking away the right to produce Korvalol from Farmak Pharmaceutical company Darnitsa Group Limited, where Zagoriy is the beneficiary, owns 93% of the plant's shares and is involved in business with the family of Valentina Matvienko, the head of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation. In the process of Darnitsa taking the right to produce Korvalol from Farmak, launching new drugs does not guarantee leadership in the industry. Therefore, Gleb Zagoriy is suing drug manufacturers in order to achieve the main goal of becoming a leader and potentially the sole supplier in the market.
The dispute between “Darnitsa” and the “Farmak” plant is indicative of Zagoria’s company successfully gaining market share even during the war,
increasing market share
(Farmak's share is 5.25% and decreased in 2022). Darnitsa has been trying for several years to claim intellectual rights to the trademark “Corvalol”. The owner of the plant aims to become the primary supplier of the popular sedative, with sales in Ukraine alone totaling over $12 million in 2022. Despite the Farmak plant being the successor of the Kiev Chemical Pharmaceutical Plant and separately registering the Corvalol Corvalolum trademark in 1996, Darnitsa wants to take the name of the drug for itself, as it produces the sedative Corvalol-Darnitsa. It is prohibited for different companies in our country to produce a medicine with the same name. Because of connections with Ukrainian politicians and courts, the former People’s Deputy Gleb Zagoriy influenced the Supreme Court of Ukraine to cancel the recognition of the Corvalol Corvalolum trademark as “well known”, which means representatives of Farmak can't ban the use of the name Corvalol by Darnitsa. Farmak's management sees this as a dangerous precedent, as courts may now cancel any decision on recognizing a trademark as “well-known” and allow clone drugs to enter the pharmaceutical market, gaining popularity only because of the well-known name, posing a threat to intellectual property rights protection.The owner of Farmak, Zhebrovskaya, was previously threatened with physical violence, and in 2009, unknown assailants shot at her.
unknown assailants shot at a businesswoman
law enforcement sources indicated that a competitor of the victim may have ordered the murder.
But the suspect managed to avoid punishment with the help of political connections.
Filya Zhebrovskaya Zagoria company takes over Borshchagovsky Chemical Pharmaceutical PlantGleb Zagoriy completely dominates over other competitors by acquiring 30% of the shares of Borshchagovsky Chemical Pharmaceutical Plant at a significantly lower price without attracting the attention of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine. Gleb ZagoryGleb Zagoriy acquired 30% of the shares of Borshchagovsky Chemical Pharmaceutical Plant for 6 times less than the market value.
A year before the major Russian invasion, Gleb Zagoriy made a move to acquire the Borshchagovka plant by purchasing land at a meeting of the Kyiv City Council.
The land on which the enterprise stands was sold to Zagoria at a significantly lower price, while the main competitor, the owner of Farmak, Filya Zhebrovskaya, lost the right to buy the land under her plant.
sold Zagoria for 21 million UAH. Despite numerous disputes, Farmak JSC was allowed to buy land from the capital community, but the decision was vetoed by Vitali Klitschko, while Gleb Zagoriy made a similar deal without any problems.
However, the purchase is being challenged in lengthy lawsuits, with courts considering the case since spring 2018. The case was initiated by the Kyiv Economic Court in 2018, with the Borshchagovsky Chemical-Pharmaceutical Plant filing a lawsuit to invalidate the exchange trading, involving “Darnitsa”, the Department of Communal Property of the Kyiv City State Administration, and Kyiv City Council. In May 2018, Zagoria submitted a counterclaim, which was combined with the original BHFZ claim into one court case according to the decision of the Economic Court dated May 10, 2018.
In August 2020, the Northern Economic Court of Appeal fully accepted the claim of the plant and denied the counterclaim from Darnitsa. However, in October 2020, the Supreme Court finally confirmed the ownership of the pharmaceutical company “Darnitsa” to the shares of “Borshchahiv Chemical and Pharmaceutical Plant” and the legality of their acquisition.
In 2021 “Darnitsa”
won the court
at the BHFZ and at the High Court of Justice in London. Now Gleb Zagoriy is determined to completely absorb the enterprise, motivating this by the fact that in Soviet times the Borshchagovsky plant was already part of Darnitsa.
Valentina Matvienko
Trade with Russia through the occupied territories Despite the full-scale war of Russia against Ukraine, drugs from the Zagoria plant can still be found on the shelves of Russian pharmacies. This may be due to the fact that the businessman’s mother is a classmate of the current head of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, Valentina Matvienko. The women studied together at the Leningrad Institute of Chemical Technology and have been in a relationship ever since. Sons have followed their mothers' footsteps. Matvienko’s son Sergey is a Russian businessman who, among other assets, owns the Erkapharm pharmacy chain. You can still find medicines manufactured at the Gleb Zagoria plant in this chain. Since it is legally impossible to export products to Russia, Zagoriy has established “gray” supplies of medicines through the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Through this route, the goods go to Russian retail. Unfortunately, Ukraine does not receive any tax collections from these sales.
Bribery of owners of pharmacy chains
While socially responsible businesses are engaged in volunteer projects and actively help the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Gleb Zagoriy continues to corrupt pharmacy chains in order to increase sales of medicines produced by Darnitsa.
Representatives of the plant offer pharmacies a simple scheme. Chains should sell drugs produced at the Zagoria plant as much as possible and sell them at prices 30-40% higher than those of competitors. Meanwhile, pharmacies undertake to ignore the products of other Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers as much as possible, ensuring the sale of the obviously expensive products of Darnitsa. For this, representatives of the Gleb Zagoria company pay remuneration to drug distributors, registering it as “marketing services”. The amount of “premium” is from a quarter to 40% of the value of the goods. Although during the war it would be much more appropriate to transfer this money to help our armed forces or settlers.
As a result, pharmacy chains cooperating with Darnitsa under this program apply non-competitive methods to other manufacturers. Their products are either ignored, or they offer companies to pay extra to the pharmacy chain so that their medications are on display next to Darnitsa products.
Bribery of owners of pharmacy chains
While socially responsible businesses are engaged in volunteer projects and actively help the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Gleb Zagoriy continues to corrupt pharmacy chains in order to increase sales of medicines produced by Darnitsa.
Representatives of the plant offer pharmacies a simple scheme. Chains should sell drugs produced at the Zagoria plant as much as possible and sell them at prices 30-40% higher than those of competitors. At the same time, pharmacies undertake to ignore the products of other Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers as much as possible, ensuring the sale of the obviously expensive products of Darnitsa. For this, representatives of the Gleb Zagoria company pay remuneration to drug distributors, registering it as “marketing services”. The amount of “premium” is from a quarter to 40% of the value of the goods. Although during the war it would be much more correct to transfer this money to help our armed forces or settlers.
As a result, pharmacy chains cooperating with Darnitsa under this program apply non-competitive methods to other manufacturers. Their products are either ignored, or they offer companies to pay extra to the pharmacy chain so that their medications are on display next to Darnitsa products.
Such actions are worthy of the attention of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, as they violate market competition and do not leave the final consumer the right to choose.
Darnitsa and PR instead of charity
In popular publications, Gleb Zagoriy is trying to promote the image of a patriot and philanthropist, whose company is actively helping Ukraine during a full-scale war. As he said in an interview, “Forbes Ukraine”, “Darnitsa” after February 24, 2022 did not stop working for a minute. Moreover, the company retained the staff with whom it pays for work in a timely manner, and also increased the production and sale of certain drugs. For example, cardiovascular and sedatives.
However, Zagoriy immediately reveals the “secret” of high sales: in the military 2022, Darnitsa became the leader in advertising budgets. About UAH 60 million was spent on it, while Farmak allocated up to UAH 40 million for this direction, and Arterium – UAH 20 million. Gleb Zagoriy is sure that even war is not a reason to “cut” advertising investments. Or maybe it would be better to spend this money on charity?
Skeleton.Info
