Business aquarium: games with the vaccine and Oksana Markarova’s appointment

Oleg Gavrysh

Deputy Chief Editor, The Page

As usual, I want to inform you of unofficial news and versions that relate to well-known and hidden events in the Ukrainian corporate world, in the business environment, in our aquarium. Here everyone knows everything about everyone, sometimes more than desired.

The first story is about pharmacists. In the near future, the vaccine against coronavirus supplies from the Chinese company Sinovac to Ukraine will begin. It is one of four vaccine manufacturers that has come closest to successfully completing a drug launch. The other three are Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca.

The story is interesting because in November-December, at the final stage of the "vaccine race", two American companies—Pfizer and Moderna—scored the advantage. This happened after one of the AstraZeneca test participants died.

It was later revealed that he was taking a placebo, but due to his death, trials in Brazil were suspended. An even stranger story happened with Sinovac: one of the test participants committed suicide.

That is, in theory, the company could not be accused of anything at all. Nevertheless, the tests were suspended for a week while the proceedings were underway, and Pfizer took the lead.

"Later, Sinovac was again given the "green light", the company received all the positive approvals and was even able to catch up. Ultimately, the Sinovac vaccine will be the first in Ukraine, while Pfizer will reach our country no earlier than April. This is, in its own way, a very fair ending to the story," a source at the Ministry of Health told .

A source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told that Oksana Markarova’s appointment as Ambassador to the United States will not lead to anything good.

The thing is that Markarova was approved by Mike Pompeo’s old Republican administration, and the new State Department is rather tense about the previous one.

"Therefore, we can expect a reluctance towards Markarova. Not to mention the fact that she is not a career diplomat with all the ensuing consequences. In fact, she was appointed just to get IMF money. So the appointment is not great," said the source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

There are at least two potential buyers for the Sberbank of Russia subsidiary in Ukraine. These are entrepreneurs Valeriy Khoroshkovsky and Andrii Ivanchuk. This has been announced by a source in the banking market.

According to the source, Khoroshkovsky has already managed to introduce his people to the bank's management to study the situation. Moreover, this may involve both the asset purchase from the Russian Sberbank and a banal property, licenses, and the bank customers division.

Our next column will be published this week on Thursday.