The Secret Story of Antibiotics Revealed and Russia’s New Super Drug Program Explored
When we just say the phrase, "Defender of the Motherland", who do we picture? Soldiers at the parade? Tanks and airplanes? Or maybe, a military hospital and an injured fighter, covered in bandages? Have you ever thought about what those bandages cover and how they treated torn flesh back in the days? They used the famous Vishnevsky ointment, a mix of tar and castor oil, with a touch of xeroform, a Bismuth-based chemical substance. It had a very peculiar smell that you can't confuse with anything. Another antiseptic they used was a white powder, streptocide. It's a sulfanilamide with a non-sustained effect. They used it, but it was highly addictive. Also, streptocide didn't kill the bacteria, it just slowed them down. Hence, the multiple amputations. An infected wound on an arm or a leg had to be amputated with the limb in order to stop the infection from spreading further.
Germans tried to milk sulfanilamide for more than it was able to give. They cut the organs of the concentration camps' prisoners, and filled the wounds with dirt, glass, wood dust, etc... They waited for contamination, even gangrenes and tried to cure their guinea pigs with sulfanilamide. There were barely any survivors. The leader of this program was a Nazi doctor, Gebhardt, Himmler's personal physician. As a result of the Nuremberg Trial, Gebhardt was executed by hanging.
By the end of WWII, a miraculous cure for wounds was found. It was even brought into circulation. Antibiotics. A living medicine. The first one being penicillin. It is essentially mold. You can even call it combat mold, annihilating bacteria such as staph. Oh, this competition was comparable to the nuclear arms race.
It's notable that the first penicillin, as an incidentally grown mold, was accidentally discovered by the Englishman Fleming back in 1928. But England couldn't solely handle creating the drug dosage form and the production of the new miraculous drug. The invention made its way to the US in 1942. Penicillin was supplied to the US troops in mid-1943. And only in late 1944, after the second front was opened, Americans decided to sell limited supplies of penicillin to the Soviet Union. Back in the days, it cost mad money. The first supply ran at $4.40 per vial.
Let me remind you, that we were allies with the British and the Americans. Stalin wanted to purchase the license to produce penicillin from the US. They even agreed on the cost. Then, all of a sudden, the cost doubled. We agreed. Then, US refused to sell at all, claiming the British were against it due to copyright. This was an odd reason for allies, especially, since millions were dying on the Eastern Front. There were even more wounded. However, if it really were the British, who resisted, it was a political decision, which could only be made by Churchill in London. It looked like he wasn't interested in healing Soviet soldiers. Why would he be? Russians have more soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union conducted their own experiments with the "combat mold". Starting in 1942, Professor Zinaida Ermolyeva's group switched to a 24/7 mode. The rumor of the miraculous drug, a living one to top it off, capable of killing bacteria had been around for some time, but the US guarded the secret of this substance, as the most classified military secret.
Although, in 1942, around the time that the British penicillin made it to the US, and was brought into circulation, Ermolyeva managed to synthesize a Russian antibiotic, Penicillium crustosum, from a domestic strain. Our penicillin made it to the Front only by late 1944, and, regrettably, only for testing. We didn't launch an industrial-level production of antibiotics until after the war.
After the bitter experience of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union paid extra attention to developing the microbiological industry. This meant manufacturing antibiotics in particular. Of course! What would the military equipment and millions of soldiers be worth, if the Army can't heal its fighters, and they start dying of dirty scars? Therefore, living drugs, or antibiotics, were equal to arms and an important factor of National Safety. USSR manufactured high-quality antibiotics and used them for export widely.
Even more, we build pharmaceutical plants for our allies. Often it was for free, or on very discounted terms. Countries of the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe, China, and India, developed an entire industry of drug production, including antibiotics, because of the USSR. We sent drug formulas and technologies. They would send specialists, who we taught to use it all.
After the USSR fell apart, so did our pharmaceutical industry. We even stopped manufacturing substances. We started using imported drugs and fakes.
And now comes the good news of this week. Right in time for the Day of the Defender of the Motherland, a new production of domestic antibiotics was launched on Tuesday in Saransk, Mordovia. From scratch. It's a full-cycle production, from the strain to ready-to-go drug forms. Is it important? Supremely so. This means drug security for the country.
To be specific, this creates the conditions for national sovereignty. Who can guarantee that the latest-generation antibiotics won't fall under the indecorous sanctions one of these days? Either way, our drugs will be cheaper and more reliable. We'll be able to control what they're made of.
Alena Ragozina reports on the historic event from Saransk.
The ambitious Vancomycin project has taken off. Now, an almost unique enterprise is active in the heart of Saransk. It synthesizes and ferments antibiotics of a new era, of the 4th and 5th generation. There are no known analogs in Russia.
The nation's drug security begins with this vial.
The first decomposer strain was synthesized from scratch. This is an absolute know-how. Surgeon General Veronika Skvortsova witnesses the entire cycle of Vancomycin production. They call it "the antibiotic of last hope". It works when other drugs have no effect.
In the US, more people die of staph each year, than from AIDS. Multi-resistance bacteria is a doctor's nightmare. Immune to almost all antibiotics, they kill in a matter of hours. Doctors are powerless. The WHO lists multi-resistance infections as the number one global threat. They defy breakthrough developments and technologies.
Vasily Kuptsov, Deputy Executive Director of Biohimik: "Because there are so many of them, the bacteria in our environment, simply by the law of large numbers, become multi-resistant faster than us".
In Russia, the manufacturing technologies were nearly lost in the collapsed 1990s. Today, our pharmacy technicians aren't too eager to go into independent drug production. The investments are multi-billions. The recoupment period is long. Minimizing primary costs while manufacturing Vancomycin was possible due to old production reserves of the Saransk's Biohimik. They used to produce tons of penicillin here in the Soviet times.
Corroded valves, fermentors, and asbestos-covered pipes. Self-recorders instead of computers. This is what the production looked like before the new era.
The movement towards innovations was head-on. The equipment was modernized and filled with new technological content. The beginning of production, the strains are bred in a seeding lab. Then, the best samples are selected.
- A young matrix is when we get these little suns, young and well-colored.
The samples are then put into a liquid environment and placed in shakers, for active growth. In fermentor reactors, the bacteria are protected from unfavorable pressure and high temperatures, so they can produce a living antibiotic.
Until now, domestic production was oriented for manufacturing from imported substances. The technological chain had to be re-created. They had to find specialists, renew labs, and repair the equipment.
The unique production took off, and at first glance, nothing special is happening. However, microorganisms have already started filling the reactors. Those are two-story tanks. 15 quadrillion of bacteria. They already started producing the antibiotic. The substance travels through special filters through the conduit pipes. The filtering is not even at a micro but at a nano level. Packaging and quality control. No robots, only manual labor, each batch requires signature confirmation. This production has an extreme responsibility level.
Petr Beliy, Promoted Board Director: "The factory has an assigned quality control person, his name is on the production license. He's personally responsible for every batch. Afterwards, the factory issues a quality certificate. The system is called Quality Control".
The renewed Biohimik plant is already one of the most globally active leaders in the manufacturing of modern antibiotics. First international contracts are expected in a few months. Just recently, they held a tour for German pharmacy techs.
Frank Dierks, Biesterfeld International Director: "I was impressed by the antibiotic manufacturing plant. In these terms, it's a great ground for partnership. We could buy new antibiotics from Biohimik, it's mutually beneficial".
Right now, the search for new-generation live antibiotics from multiple viruses is underway in labs and science centers all over the world. For the first time after a long break, Russia is in the lead here. The first Russian industrial full-cycle antibiotics manufacturer of the new generation isn't limited by solely producing Vancomycin. The plant is also the largest bio-technological center in the country.
Veronika Skvortsova, Russia's Surgeon General: "The Biohimik enterprise has created 4 brand-new antibiotics. All of them are 5th-generation. One of them can be used not just in injection form, but in the form of pills as well. Besides us, only the US has created a similar product. This makes us absolute pioneers".
The plan is to create over 20 kinds of original anti-bacterial drugs of the 5th generation by 2020. The only problem is staff deficiency. A new specialized department will be created in cooperation with the Mordovian State University. The students' interest is spiked, there are 10 candidates per spot.
- It's really cool to see new organisms grow, it's a new little life.
- There is so much new equipment, all of it needs to be studied, so now we study, so we can work here in the future.
The launch of the first antibiotic production line in the country, where everything is domestic, from the first microbe to a ready-to-go vial, isn't just an important event, it's strategic for the drug safety of the country. Biohimik has grand plans and potential. Production and synthesis of antibiotics of the 4th generation, Vancomycin, and of the 5th generation, Televancinum, Oritavancin, and Ramoplanin. This means an already existing health reserve, as well as a new standard of not just domestic, but global pharmaceuticals.
Alena Ragozina, Petr Mamochkin, Vladislav Ridolin, Anton Kasimovich, Vesti News of the Week, Saransk.