RDIF Announces Investment in Healthcare as a Strategic Priority

The Russian Direct Investment Fund, (RDIF) Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, announces RDIF. Healthcare – an investment channel with a strategic focus on the implementation of projects in the healthcare sector. The fund has formed a specialized team of healthcare professionals to lead in developing the channel.

RDIF has been actively involved in fighting COVID-19 through working on healthcare projects. Before the pandemic, a number of healthcare projects have been launched as part of the fund’s investment strategy aimed at improving general quality of life. Further development of healthcare investment is the next stage in the process.

Regarding this, RDIF announces the appointment of Nina Kandelaki as a Director at RDIF. Healthcare. Mrs Kandelaki joined RDIF from GE Healthcare, one of the leading manufacturers of medical equipment globally, where she held a position of Regional Manager for Russia and the CIS.

Nina Kandelaki will lead a team of top-tier international healthcare professionals at RDIF, who have been tasked to develop existing initiatives and launch new investment projects in this strategic area.

Since the start of 2020, RDIF has focused its efforts on three key areas in fighting COVID-19: testing systems, treatment drugs and a vaccine. Thanks to an international partnership network and accumulated internal expertise, RDIF has achieved great results in all the three areas.

RDIF started production (from scratch) of a unique Russian-Japanese COVID-19 diagnostics system called EMG, which provides highly-accurate results in 30 minutes, both in stationary laboratories as well as in mobile mini-labs, which does not have an international equivalent. Thanks to the EMG diagnostics system, Russia has become one of the global leaders in terms of the number of COVID-19 tests conducted.

Together with ChemRar Group, one of the leaders in the Russian pharmaceuticals industry, RDIF launched mass production of Avifavir, one of the two registered COVID-19 drugs in the world. Avifavir has already been supplied to 15 countries.

Together with The National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N.F. Gamaleya (the Gamaleya Center), RDIF is developing industrial production of Sputnik V, the world’s first registered vaccine against coronavirus based on the well-studied platform of human adenoviral vectors. Based on the analysis of data obtained from 18,794 clinical trial volunteers 28 days after administering the first dose (7 days after the second dose), the efficacy of the Sputnik V vaccine is 91.4%. Requests for more than 1.2 billion doses of Sputnik V vaccine have already been received from over 50 countries.

These investments have been made possible thanks to RDIF’s previous experience in the implementation of the following projects:

• Mother and Child’s network of clinics and hospitals and the company’s transformation into the leading private medical company in Russia;
• Russia’s first public-private partnership project in nuclear medicine;
• Reorganization and expansion of Russia’s leading pharmaceutical companies Gerofarm, R-Farm and Alium;
• The launch of Doctis, an online medical services platform, and its development into a key player in Russia’s booming online medical services market;
• Investments in AST, a developer of surgical robots based on artificial intelligence (AI);
• Investment in Motorica, Russia’s leading developer and producer of prostheses which incorporate artificial intelligence (AI)

Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, commented:

“In working on projects focused on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw huge demand for new investments in the healthcare sector in Russia and all over the world. These investments will help us defeat the current pandemic we are facing in the near term, but also to provide a platform for us to be better prepared to deal with potential threats to human health in the more distant future. We are ready to form new partnerships and provide investments in telemedicine, production of new drugs, treatment of oncological diseases, research and production of new vaccines, as well as education of doctors and medical workers. RDIF has formed a new team of market-leading professionals with experience of working in international markets. Soon, the share of healthcare investments in RDIF’s portfolio will reach 15%, and the total number of customers being serviced by the companies in RDIF’s healthcare portfolio will reach 20 million people”.

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