Gosmedtorgprom

GOSMEDTORGPROM, 'Joint Stock Company for the Production and Trade of Chemical-Pharmaceutical Preparations and Medical Property', arose from the merger of Gosmedtorg and Farmatrest of the USSR Supreme Economic Council (1924). The tasks of G. include the production of chemical, chemical-pharmaceutical, galenic, dressing, organotherapeutic, and other medical preparations and their trade, as well as the trade in medical supply items (both in the USSR and beyond its borders). The main principles of G.'s activity are: the maximum development of pharmaceutical preparation production (especially the most complex ones) and the maximum satisfaction of the needs of pharmacy and health-sanitary institutions with items for patient care, medical equipment, and medical instruments. The basic capital is 7,000,000 rubles. The founders of the society are the People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR and the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR; the main shareholders are its founders and to a small extent (3.81%)--medtorgs of the union republics and a number of provincial pharmacy administrations. For the entire association (including also the apparatus of management of trading enterprises, etc.) as of October 1, 1928: there were 1,628 workers, 625 employees (total 2,253 people). The value of the products of Gosmedtorgprom's factories in 1927/28 amounted to 21,625,233 rubles and constituted approximately ^1/6 of all pharmaceutical industry of the USSR. In quantitative terms, the output of G.'s factories in 1927/28 amounted to almost 6 million kg of chemical, galenic and other preparations and over 2 million units of various ready-made preparations. In the area of the city of Moscow, Gosmedtorgprom unites the following 5 factories. 1. Alkaloid (109 people), on which are produced: atropine, cocaine, all salts of codeine, heroin, dionine, morphine, pantopon, papaverine, stipticin and so-called preparations of new galenics (adonilen, gitalen and diginorm). 2. Named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky (187 people), on which are produced: bromides, iodides, caustic alkalis, iodoform, collodion, lunar caustic, potassium permanganate, medical and technical tannin, ordinary ether and for anesthesia. 3. Named after S13 L.Ya. Karpov (559 people), on which are produced: antifebrin, biochinol, bismuthogvui, sodium benzoate, bismuth salts, milk-iron, colyargol, monobromocamphor, caffeine salts, diuretin, neosalvarsan, osareol, pepsin, mercury preparations (sublimate, calomel, precipitated cyanide mercury, oxide and others), lead acetate, tanalbin, terpin hydrate, urotronin, phytin, ferratin, chloroethyl and other organic compounds; inorganic (mineral) salts: Epsom salt, pure ammonium chloride and sulfate, barium sulfate for X-ray examination, Glauber's salt, sodium chloride for physiological solutions, zinc sulfate and others. All salts up to 50 names, with a total quantity of up to 2 million kg per year; galenic preparations with a total quantity of 1.3 million kg per year; chemically pure reagents over 100 names. 4. Named after N.A. Semashko (596 people), on which are produced: first-aid kits, ready and dosed preparations, organopreparations, dental preparations (amalgam, gutta-percha, stannous, modeling wax, cement and others), castor oil medical, 3% hydrogen peroxide, sterilized solutions in ampoules, photographic and X-ray plates, photographic paper and chemical products for photography, ordinary chloroform and for anesthesia, pharmaceutical packaging, etc. 5. Salicylic (110 people), on which are produced: aspirin, benzonaphthol, methyl ester of salicylic acid, salit, salicylic acid, sodium salicylate and salol. Besides factories, G. has an experimental iodine station in the area of the city of Baku, near Lake Beyuk-Shor. Here scientific research work is carried out on methods for extracting iodine from petroleum waters. The production of most chemical-pharmaceutical preparations in Russia began only during the imperialist war, but its greatest development occurred during the revolutionary period, after the factories were transferred to the management of Gosmedtorgprom. Thus, the salicylic factory, organized in 1916, had an annual production capacity of pure salicylic preparations 48,000 kg, but after its transfer to the management of T. at the same factory, 80,296 kg were produced in 1924/25, and in 1925/26 - 143,162 kg, in 1926/27 - 150,087 kg, and in 1927/28 - 214,247 kg. The alkaloid factory, organized in the same year, was designed for the production of 900 kg of various alkaloids; in 1924/25, 1,754 kg were produced, in 1925/26 - 2,997 kg, in 1926/27 - 2,852 kg, and in 1927/28 - 3,536 kg; neosalvarsan in 1924/25 was produced 200 kg, in 1925/26 - 826 kg and in 1927/28 - 857 kg. A whole series of preparations, previously imported from abroad, are now produced in G.'s factories in quantities that fully satisfy the needs of the entire USSR, and their import from abroad has been completely stopped (these preparations include iodides, bromides, salicylates, mercury preparations, bismuth preparations, neosalvarsan, opium alkaloids, phytin, organopreparations, castor oil, chloroform, iodoform and other preparations). Some items of its own production G. exports abroad (some alkaloids, galenics, patentica and others).-Import. G. is the central importing organization of medicines, medical equipment and instrumentation; import quotas are mostly decentralized and distributed to the largest regions and union republics, while the implementation of licenses for these quotas abroad, for the proper regulation of imports, is carried out through G. on a commission basis. The purchase of imported goods G. carries out according to the quotas allocated to it for the most part of non-districted provinces of the RSFSR.-Besides imported goods and items of its own production, G. supplies pharmacy administrations with items produced by other organizations within the USSR. To supply pharmacy administrations with items not available in G., a commission bureau has been organized under it.-Instrumentation. Its own production of medical instrumentation and equipment, except for a repair workshop, Gosmedtorgprom does not have. It procures them from organizations producing these items and imports them from abroad. With respect to these items, G. determines the needs of the USSR in them and assists the corresponding production organizations in establishing these productions, as well as advises regulatory and planning bodies on issues of production, sales and standardization of medical instrumentation and equipment. The turnover of G. from the sale of these items in 1927/28 amounted to 4,477,259 rubles and consisted of 80% of items produced within the USSR.-Prices. The movement of selling prices for G.'s goods is characterized by the following table of movement of the trade index (compared with pre-war prices): Years 1924/26 1926/26 1923/27 1927/28 Trade index Medicines ^.^Ц 1,698 1,472 1,368 1,296 2,190 1,730 1,377 1,342 For individual groups of goods, G.'s selling prices are below pre-war ones. The index of G.'s list prices in relation to the list prices of foreign firms in 1925/26 amounted to 1.54.-For individual groups of goods, G.'s prices are equal to foreign ones (galenic preparations), and for individual items even lower than them, for example, G.'s prices for neosalvarsan in 1925/26 amounted to 0.77 of foreign prices.