Petr Sarukhanov / "Novaya Gazeta"

"Can you imagine how much it is in human lives?" - says Adelya Kalmetyeva, general director of the Pharmland pharmacy chain.

"Farmland" is 1300 pharmacies in the Urals and the Volga region.

“Now there is a second wave of covid,” says Adelya Kalmetyeva. - And if in Moscow you can be treated in a hospital, then here we have a nightmare. People simply die, there are few medicines in the hospital, and you can get there by great pull. Where do people go for treatment? To pharmacy".

Farmland has about 15 thousand square meters of warehouses. Before July 1, anticipating a catastrophe, the network hammered them to the eyeballs, but now supplies are running out. “There are no antibiotics, no anticoagulants, not even lidocaine,” says Adelya Kalmetyeva. “The manufacturer has a half-baked product, and he cannot release the product to the market, because he has not received the codes, and the pharmacy cannot register, because he also did not receive the codes.”

A digital revolution is taking place all over the world , and thanks to it, the consumer has improved and simplified access to the service. An anti-digital revolution is taking place in Russia . This is when the state requires the consumer to buy a digital brick, which he does not need, and the money for the brick goes to the commercial structure in the form of a private tax.

A typical example of the anti-digital revolution was "Plato" - when all truck drivers were levied in favor of the Rothenberg company.

Another typical example is the labeling system, which has already been introduced for fur coats and shoes, and since July 1 - for medicines.

Photo: Victoria Odissonova / Novaya Gazeta

In Russia, 5 billion packages of drugs are sold per year, and from July 1, 50 kopecks. From each package comes Operator-CRPT LLC, which belongs to Usmanov, Rostec and the company of venture capitalist Alexander Galitsky, among whose shareholders, in his own words, is Alexander Udodov.

Formally, the goal was declared good. It was assumed that the labeling would make it impossible to evade taxes and sell counterfeit drugs. With this noble goal, a unique KIZ is glued to each package of medicines - a control (identification) sign with a crypto-tail of 14 characters.

I remember how one of my acquaintances, who was directly related to this system, tried to convince me that the highest quality digital service for the population was conceived. He pointed his smartphone at a pack of cigarettes, and all its ins and outs were instantly displayed on the smartphone: when it was produced, and who is the manufacturer, and who had it in the warehouse.

The problem, of course, is that the service is not at all like in Europe. In Europe, the corresponding network is built on the blockchain principle, and the QR code is applied by the manufacturer himself. It is an open system with many operators.

In Russia, the system is centralized.

How could this be easier to explain?

Well, imagine that you have produced goods in Khabarovsk and deliver them to Vladivostok. And suddenly a demand comes to you that before the goods are delivered to Vladivostok, they must be taken to Moscow at such and such an address, in such and such a lane and taken into account there. And after you have delivered it to Vladivostok, the goods are transported from Vladivostok to the regional center. And also, before bringing it to the regional center, it must be taken to Moscow and taken into account there again. And when it was brought to the regional center, it is sold to a specific buyer in a pharmacy. And before selling it to a specific buyer, it must be taken to Moscow again.

And it was to Moscow. And it was in this alley. And it was in this house. And from all over the country.

And with every transaction. And not a sample. Not a box. And every pack. 5 billion packs.

Imagine how big the collapse of the transport system will cause? What will be the queues? How will buyers get angry?

This is exactly what is happening now in Russia from July 1 for all drugs, only in digital form. With each transaction - from manufacturer to distributor, from distributor to warehouse, from warehouse to pharmacy, from pharmacy to customer - you need to receive and post a digital passport for each pack of medicine and get it from the only place - from the CRPT. And the servers are hanging. And it turns out that physically the goods arrived. And in digital form, the goods did not reach. And physically he is. And in digital it is not.

Well, or quite simply. Imagine that in order to complete any transaction with a product - to make, transfer, store, sell - you need to call Moscow for permission. And it's busy there.

The plug in the system starts from the moment of production.

Oleg Zherebtsov, owner of the pharmaceutical company "Grotex"

“To get the codes,” says Oleg Zherebtsov , the owner of a large St. Petersburg pharmaceutical manufacturer Grotex, “we have to pay money, throw off many millions of rubles the day before. And after that they should give us codes upon request. And the system does not issue. It hangs. Issues with a delay. "

Zherebtsov has 27 lines at the plant, and he spent, according to him, 360 million rubles on marking equipment. He hired 50 people who stupidly scan codes: but that's not the point, but the system freezes.

“Can you imagine,” says Zherebtsov, “what is it if the line hangs for three hours? It's like the airport doesn't work for three hours. "

Dmitry Rutskoy owns the Pharmacy Traditions group of companies. Frame "Pharmvestnik TV"

According to Dmitry Rutskoy , the owner of the Pharmacy Traditions group of companies, up to 30% of pharmacological capacities may be idle in Russia now.

Revaz Yusupov , deputy general director of the CRPT, admits that "there are difficulties," but claims that "the system hung for several hours only on September 30th."

Revaz Yusupov, Deputy General Director of CRPT - operator of the drug labeling system

“Zherebtsov claims that his lines are idle regularly for several hours. He says that he has dates, logs. He's lying?" - I asked Mr. Yusupov. “I can see what kind of dynamics the Grotex has,” he declined to answer.

However, producer downtime is just the beginning of the problem. After the manufacturer has nevertheless sent the goods to the distributor, the distributor again has no right to dispose of the goods until he receives the KIZs from the CRPT. And the system hangs again.

“We have to request KIZs not from the manufacturer, but in Moscow, through the CRPT,” says Adelya Kalmetyeva, “and the system is hanging. The truck, which we previously processed for half an hour, we now process for three days. "

But this is not the end, because after the distributor sends the package to the pharmacy,

“Who came up with this crazy idea? - says Kalmetyeva. - Did they understand how many transactions there would be? Did they understand that 60 thousand pharmacies would turn to them? And inside we cannot punch a check in the pharmacy if the KIZ is incorrect. And so throughout Russia! I have been doing this for 25 years - but I have never had this. Well, to bring everything to such an absurdity! "

In a distribution center for the storage of medicines and parapharmaceuticals. Photo: RIA Novosti

One of the main drugs against covid is still the antibiotic azithromycin (aka sumamed ). “Our sumamed is at the customs,” says Adelya, “TEVA owes us 30 thousand packages. Hundreds of thousands of packages of sumamed are in customs warehouses, and they cannot release them on the market. "

Dmitry Rutskoy has azithromycin - 25 thousand packages.

says Rutskoi.

In the case of a bacterial infection of the lungs, the Ministry of Health recommends for the treatment of covid a strong and old antibiotic levofloxacin, which produces incl. Russian "Alium", owned by AFK "Sistema".

“They printed KIZs, and they are incorrect, - says Kalmetyeva, - the pharmacy cannot scan them.”

The fact that the cytokine storm in covid can be treated with dexamethasone (and, more broadly, other steroids) is perhaps by far the largest real breakthrough in the treatment of severe forms of covid. We know for sure that the use of steroids reduces mortality from severe forms of covid by 30%. Farmland still has dexamethasone: they have specially accumulated a huge supply of unmarked dexamethasone since summer. “I can't say what will happen when the supply runs out,” says Adelya Kalmetyeva.

Another key drug is clexane . It is an anticoagulant that, in severe disease, drastically reduces the risk of death from a blood clot. Clexane is produced by Sanofi, in Russia there are local analogs - for example, quadraparin , which is produced by Grotex, from the same substance. The substance is Chinese, 40 kg were allocated to Russia, and America took 5 tons. “So even the fact that our poor fellows snatched these 40 kg, we cannot get it in the pharmacy,” says Kalmetyeva.

The pharmaceutical company SANDOZ (Slovenia) produces the antibiotic acetylcysteine, which dissolves phlegm in the lungs. “They can't clear customs,” says Adelya, “everyone has two weeks of problems. All have a standard delay of 2-3 weeks. Well this is how much in terms of life? This is killing me. And Muscovites do not care - they are not dying. "

In "Farmland" there is not even elementary lidocaine, without which, as without a solvent, many antibiotics cannot be administered. “For the same reason: the plant cannot receive KIZs during production, and we cannot capitalize them,” says Adela.

And we are only talking about drugs for covid.

Photo: Alexey Dushutin / Novaya Gazeta

The Russian government, as always, denies the obvious. The head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov on Wednesday ruled out the possibility of a shortage of drugs due to labeling.

The CRPTs are expressed much more streamlined. Revaz Yusupov admits that there are problems, that the system was stuck, but he tries to explain most of them by the fact that three-quarters of Russian pharmacies are IHPs, which does not allow them to work with labeling at all, and the incorrect integration of distributors' internal labeling systems and the inevitable problems of the an unrolled system. “98% of transactions take place within 10 minutes,” says Revaz Yusupov.

“Yusupov is lying,” Dmitry Rutskoy briefly comments on this statement. "I suggest that Yusupov come to the first pharmacy he comes across and try to conduct the transaction himself."

In response to the question why the system was not built as a blockchain, Revaz Yusupov said that this question should be asked to regulators, but suggested that “the blockchain would not cope with such a volume of information”. This is a very strange answer. As a philologist by education, I will be happy to hear the answer of specialists, but in general, the blockchain can cope with any amount of information, because there is no central authority in the blockchain. In it, each participant in the chain is a digital operator. And the system does not cope just in the centralized CRPT!

In addition, I find it odd to explain that the wrong users are to blame for the collapse of the digital system. I have no doubt that many consumers do make mistakes nowadays. How can I put it? In a good system, the possibility of these errors should be protected. If 100 IT specialists cannot buy a ticket on the airline's website, then the problem is with the website, not with the customers.

And the government did not know that three quarters of pharmacies in the country would not be able to use the system at all?

Did this overwhelming discovery fall on them on July 1, 2020?

However, one cannot but admit that the CRPT recognizes the problem and is making, apparently, desperate attempts to resolve it: in contrast to Minister Manturov, who denies that it exists.

“Why collapse drug supply across the country? - says Dmitry Rutskoi. - Do you know what's going on in pharmacies? They spit. Poured with brilliant green. I had a case when an invalid smashed a pharmacy with a crutch ”.

“I thought that starting from July 1, even with covid, they wouldn’t be able to implement this unfinished system,” Zherebtsov says. - No, not a fig. They sold it. "

Photo: RIA Novosti

The Russian drug digital labeling system is a Big Brother with a commercial bias. Within the framework of this system, each economic agent must call Big Brother himself and ask him for permission to take any action. And pay 50 kopecks for it. from each pack.

And Big Brother is busy.

By introducing this brick at the height of the epidemic, the authorities showed us how much the life of a Russian voter costs. What's in the joke? "Five old women is already a ruble." The old ladies have risen in price.