Picture of the day: digest of the main news from August 8, 2025
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#1 Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Tatyana Golikova spoke about the interim results of the national project "New Health Saving Technologies", which was launched on January 1, 2025. The NP includes five federal projects, including "Development of the Production of the Most Popular Medicines and Medical Devices" and "Medical Science Management". Since the beginning of the year, it has been possible to expand the range of medical products to 550 units and increase the number of drugs from the list of vital and essential drugs produced in the country to eight. Projects for the development of eight biomedical technologies for the treatment of diseases of the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and nervous systems have also been approved. According to regulators, seven biomedical cell products and tissue engineering products will be introduced in the field of regenerative biomedicine - for the treatment of infertility in men, the consequences of injuries to large joints, and the spinal cord.
#2 The Council for Professional Qualifications in Healthcare has asked the Russian Ministry of Health to clarify the rules for applying Order No. 206n of May 2, 2023 "On Approval of Qualification Requirements for Medical and Pharmaceutical Workers with Higher Education", as well as the accreditation procedures for medical psychologists. The council believes that the regulator intends to "impose mandatory accreditation of a specialist", while all attempts are "unsuccessful". The council members clarify that due to the lack of accreditation, employers have begun to terminate employment contracts with medical psychologists even if they have more than five years of experience and have undergone professional retraining in the field of "clinical psychology".
Financing of medical care
The Russian Ministry of Health will try to speed up the allocation of subsidies to federal and private clinics for the provision of high-tech medical care. To do this, the department intends to eliminate a formal restriction - to start funding high-tech medical care outside the basic compulsory medical insurance program at the beginning of the next year, it is necessary to issue a separate departmental order indicating the share of wages in high-tech medical care tariffs. Sometimes it takes more than a month to prepare the document and get it approved by the Ministry of Justice. Now it is proposed to include information on the share of wages in the state guarantees program, which is released together with the beginning of the new financial year - a similar procedure applies to another list of high-tech medical care methods included in the compulsory medical insurance.
Medical products market
The Russian Ministry of Health has developed amendments that redistribute part of the Roszdravnadzor's functionality for licensing medical equipment services to its territorial bodies. In particular, the federal regulator will continue to issue licenses, and local territorial bodies will make changes to them. The amendments were developed with the aim of "implementing customer centricity" and also to ensure that the agency complies with deadlines for processing and issuing documents.
Sankur market
Stavropol Krai Governor Vladimir Vladimirov reported that the implementation of a project to build the first stage of a health resort with a SPA complex will begin in Kislovodsk. Investments in the construction of the facility were estimated at 2 billion rubles. After the opening of the sanatorium, 110 new jobs will appear at the facility. Also, a land plot on preferential terms has been allocated in the city for the organization of another complex - a natural health resort with 3.5 thousand rooms. The company "Med" will be engaged in the implementation, the facility is planned to open in 8 years.
Patent disputes
CureVac and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have reached an agreement with Pfizer and BioNTech, ending a patent dispute over the development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Under the agreement, CureVac and GSK will receive $740 million and royalties on future U.S. sales of the vaccines, while Pfizer and BioNTech will receive a non-exclusive license to manufacture and sell the drugs. The deal comes two months after BioNTech announced plans to acquire CureVac for $1.25 billion.
International agenda
The US District Court for the Northern District of California found Meta (a company recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) guilty of illegally collecting data from users of the Flo Health app, designed to track aspects of women's reproductive health. According to the case materials, Meta received information about menstrual cycles, sex life, and pregnancy plans without the consent of users. Although Flo Health had previously promised not to share this data with third parties, the information was still used for advertising purposes. Meta refused an out-of-court settlement, unlike other defendants in the case.
Other news:
Clinical guidelines for acute respiratory viral infections in adults have been updated
OpenAI: GPT-5 is the most advanced model for answering medical questions
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