The triumph of reason: the head of FMBA told about the new oncovaccine
Specialists of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA) have developed and put into practice more than 100 drugs and medical devices since 2020: in 2025, a new cancer vaccine may already be used, as well as the world's first vaccine against allergy to birch pollen. This became known on November 25 after the meeting between Vladimir Putin and the head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency Veronika Skvortsova. The agency's contribution to the support of fighters of the Special Forces of the Russian Federation is not insignificant: more than 125 thousand people were provided with medical aid during the special operation. How the work of the FMBA has changed in recent years and what indicators of the agency's work particularly impressed the President - in the material "Izvestia".
What the FMBA does
On November 25, Vladimir Putin talked to the head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency Veronika Skvortsova. Their last public meeting took place almost a year and a half ago - in June 2023 at the first hour of the morning. Then the head of the agency presented an urgent report on the situation after the breach of the Kakhov hydroelectric dam in the Kherson region. At the same time, Putin and Skvortsova see each other much more often, as she participates in many domestic and international events of the head of state, for example, in the official visit to Mongolia, which took place in early September.
Veronika Skvortsova, head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency, meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In four years, FMBA specialists have tested and put into practice more than 100 products, drugs and test systems, the head of the agency said. It has also managed to create a powerful cluster of 35 scientific centers, which allows to carry out developments from ideas and fundamental blocks to prototypes, research, transfer to production and practical implementation.
- Today FMBA is the most important state structure, which deals with a number of problems of strategic direction in our country. The broad agenda of the meeting with the President proved it," Sergei Leonov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection, told Izvestia. - This includes nuclear medicine, and ensuring health care in ZATO (closed administrative-territorial formation. - "Izvestia") and cities where nuclear power plants operate. This includes high-performance sports, training of athletes, cosmonautics, development of medicines in various areas. Their work in new regions should be noted separately. In this sense, the Federal Medical and Biological Agency cannot be overestimated. Where there are important tasks for the state in the field of medicine and health care, the FMBA comes to the fore.
Prospects for the emergence of oncovaccine and birch pollen allergy vaccine
The whole world is now working on the creation of personalized medicines based on the biological codes of a particular person, including the creation of such oncovaccine, said Veronika Skvortsova. The process of its development itself is extremely complex.
"The dynamics of turning on the immune system is completely different, and for each person: some need a quick response, as short, and for another we need to turn on this response in a week, in two, so that it holds for three years. These are different approaches, as well as a different choice of antigens", - said the head of FMBA.
When administering the vaccine during the experiment with the most malignant intestinal adenocarcinoma in animals was able to detect not just a sharp slowdown in the development of the tumor - there was a reduction in its volume by 75-80%. That is, the animals do not die from it, but continue to live and there is an opportunity to control the tumor, said Veronika Skvortsova.
"We have finished actually a three-year cycle of research on this vaccine. Thanks to the fact that this year the law on the use of personalized medicines was adopted, we hope to start using it in patients as early as next year," she said.
According to Skvortsova, in parallel, studies are also being conducted on vaccines against cancer diseases of different localizations, including melanoma, skin cancer and glioblastoma, a malignant neoplasm of the brain.
Specialists of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency have completely changed their approach to the creation of mRNA vaccines, on which Moderna and Pfizer's covid vaccines were made, in order to virtually nullify the side effects, said the head of the FMBA. She recalled that the whole world criticized Moderna and Pfizer after the COVID-19 pandemic for causing a huge number of side effects.
"That is, the vaccine acts only at the site of administration, turns out immediately in the immune cells of the blood and produces its effect without affecting other organs and systems," said Veronika Skvortsova.
Vaccine therapy is again becoming one of the promising directions in the treatment of many types of cancerous tumors, Igor Utyashev, a medical oncologist and candidate of medical sciences, told Izvestia.
- Scientific teams around the world are engaged in clinical trials of anti-tumor vaccines. The expert community is eagerly awaiting the published results of their clinical trials in order to make a decision on the inclusion of this method of therapy in clinical recommendations for the treatment of cancer patients," he said.
Other FMBA developments include a vaccine for birch pollen allergy. According to Veronika Skvortsova, the results of clinical trials will be already at the end of June 2025 after the first blooming season. "According to the data of previous experiments, the vaccine is absolutely working, highly effective and has no analogues in the world," she noted.
How FMBA helps special operation fighters
This time the meeting focused mainly on the agency's work in a special military operation. Since its first days, FMBA units have been working to eliminate medical and sanitary consequences of combat operations in Donbass and Novorossiya, as well as sabotage attacks in border regions. Skvortsova told Putin how FMBA specialists worked in the Kursk region on the night of the August 7 attack by the AFU. Within the first hours, they relocated a group of 200 people to the base of a medical unit in Kurchatov, brought 180 specialists, 68 surgeons of different profiles and intensive care specialists, and organized an armored transport to take the wounded out of the combat zone.
"In the first weeks, 300-400 wounded fighters were treated per day and up to 60 operations were performed per day in six parallel deployed operating rooms. To date, more than 5.5 thousand people have received medical care in Kursk region, more than 3 thousand have been operated on, more than 2 thousand have been evacuated. That is, we have created a mobile hospital with 118 beds, it was the closest - 35 km from the border areas where the hostilities took place", - said Veronika Skvortsova.
The FMBA also worked in Belgorod region, she specified. Thus, since the beginning of the war in the region, the healthcare sector has been significantly modernized, said Natalia Poluyanova, a State Duma deputy from Belgorod region, to Izvestia. A network of modular concrete shelters has been set up in the region to ensure the safety of residents, and first aid kits are located in public places. FMBA has sent medical teams with the necessary equipment, added the parliamentarian.
- Among the specialists working in the Belgorod region are anesthesiologists-resuscitators, surgeons, psychologists, other specialized specialists representing various regions of our country: Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, Saratov, Samara, Kirov, Penza regions and others. Their work experience is undoubtedly undeniable. They know how to work in absolutely extreme conditions. In our region they work in Belgorod, Shebekino, Grayvoron, Valuiki. For a long time, FMBA units have been saving the lives of servicemen, volunteers and civilians in partnership with Belgorod specialists. I know firsthand that the doctors have developed friendly relations, - said Natalia Poluyanova.
Today, the entire comprehensive system of rehabilitation and recuperative treatment of servicemen has already been established: more than 125 thousand people have been treated during the special operation, 77 thousand of whom are servicemen, said Veronika Skvortsova. According to the head of the department, inpatient specialized care is provided in 17 FMBA medical centers, including the center in Mariupol, which the President opened in January 2024. Today it is in great demand, Skvortsova said: more than 41,000 people have been helped on its basis. people, including both civilians and military personnel. "The center turned out to be beautiful, good," Vladimir Putin remarked.
Since 2022, the FMBA has more than doubled the strategic reserve of blood and its components, which guarantees protection in any emergency situations of various scales. At the same time, the number of donors has increased by a third. Also from 2021, the agency has significantly increased the procurement of plasma for production purposes: from 30 thousand liters in 2021 to 600 thousand liters in 2024. "Twenty times - this looks serious," the president reacted.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
