On May 8, 1943, the People’s Commissar of the USSR Meat and Dairy Industry P.V. Smirnov signed the order No. 292 on the organization of an endocrine preparations plant on the basis of the Mikoyan Moscow Meat Processing Plant. This date is considered the official foundation day of the Enterprise.
On the eve of the 80th anniversary, FSUE “Endopharm” announces a series of publications in the federal print medium ”Rossiyskaya Gazeta” and on the official website endopharm.ru about milestones in the Enterprise formation, difficulties and achievements, scientific developments and products, crucial decisions and significant people who stood at the origins of the Moscow Endocrine Plant and made the greatest contribution to its development.
The publications are based on documents and photographs kept in the state archives of the country. The historical materials contain unique information that will help present rare information and interesting facts about the activities of the Moscow Endocrine Plant and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole to the general public, reconstruct the development of the chemical and technological area of activities from the time of the Great Patriotic War to the present.
The first publication is printed in the federal printed medium “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, issue No. 99 dated May 11, 2022.
Like people, plants have their own destiny. And the oldest federal state unitary enterprise in Russia, the Moscow Endocrine Plant, subordinated to the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, is not an exception. Some pages of almost 80-year history of the Plant were written simultaneously with the history of the country. The history of the enterprise originates during the Great Patriotic War.
On June 22, 1941, without declaring war, Hitlerite Germany treacherously attacked the Soviet Union. From the first days of the fighting, the country’s leadership took urgent measures to mobilize all forces and means to fight the aggressor. On June 26, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Decree “On the working hours of workers and employees in wartime”. Compulsory overtime work was introduced: from one to three hours for adults, and not more than two hours a day for persons under 16 years of age. “Hitlerite Germany imposed the war on us,” said the directive of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dd. June 29, 1941, - “a life-or-death question for the Soviet state is being decided, a question of whether to be the peoples of the Soviet Union or fall into enslavement”. "All for the front, all for victory!" – that is the main idea of this crucial document.
Hearts of workers of the Mikoyan Moscow Meat Processing Plant were filled with anger, rage, firm determination to repulse the hated enemy; on the basis of one of the plants of Mikoyan’s plant the Moscow Endocrine Plant was to be created. The words of the song “Holy War” became an oath for the Plant workers, as well as for millions of Soviet people.
Already in June, more than one thousand and five hundred Plant workers were called into the Red Army. And a month later, another 250 people joined the Tagansky Fighter Battalion as volunteers. Women, younsters, and pensioners stood at the workplaces of men who went to the front; in a short time they mastered the profession and maintained the pace of production. In a short time the Plant staff managed to establish the production of new products – dry canned food for soldiers and commanders of the Red Army.
In accordance with the laws of war
At that difficult time for the country, the front and the back areas were in dire need of medicines and surgical dressings. They were in increasingly short supply, since there were very few operating pharmaceutical enterprises. More than 40 of 59 enterprises of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry that existed before the start of the Great Patriotic War were abandoned in the occupied territories. Almost all of them were ruined or destroyed. In the current conditions, the reorientation of non-core industrial enterprises was urgently carried out. The Soviet government began to develop a plan for the restoration of enterprises of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry in the European part of the country.
The work of enterprises of the meat and dairy industries was adjusted accordingly. In 1942, in accordance with the order of the USSR People’s Commissariat of Health and the USSR People’s Commissariat of the Meat and Dairy Industry, the manufacture of medicines based on endocrine raw materials obtained during the processing of animal carcasses was organized at large meat processing plants.
It was said for the first time in the publication in the newspaper “Vechernyaya Moskva” dated January 20, 1943 named "Manufacture of medicines" that how the Moscow endocrine preparations plant was created – that was how the enterprise was named initially. But it’s better to read the text:
"A special endocrine preparations plant is being created at the Mikoyan Moscow Meat Processing Plant. For this purpose, the former sausage plant No. 2 is being reconstructed.
By order of the USSR People's Commissar of the Meat and Dairy Industry the comrade Smirnov and the USSR People's Commissar of Health the comrade Miterev, a scientific and technical council was created at our department presiding by N. A. Shereshevsky, the honored worker of science, Prof. The scientific and technical council considered the range of endocrine products to be manufactured by the country’s meat processing plants. 51 medicines have been approved for manufacture. Special laboratories are being organized at the meat processing plants.”
In this publication, engineer Katkovsky, the head of Glavmedfarmprom of the People’s Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR, said that at least since the beginning of 1943, a pilot manufacture of endocrine preparations began at the Mikoyan plant.
New plant starts its work
Pioneers always face difficulties. They pave the way for others to follow. As the veterans of the Moscow Endocrine Plant recall, it was extremely difficult to establish the manufacture of medicines in wartime conditions. The staff almost all consisted of women, and often they had to do the hardest men’s work. No proper equipment, in acute shortage of qualified personnel – they worked almost in primitive conditions.
In view of the acute shortage of chemists and pharmacists, graduate students were sent to pharmaceutical factories, and they had to interrupt their studies. Supporting data was preserved in the report on the plant activities for 1943. For example, the plant’s headcount was up to almost 88 percent. And the number of students exceeded 162 percent. The increase in the number of students against the approved limits was caused by a shortage of skilled workers. But this was compensated by the hard work of employees. The average percentage of performance rates by workers for the year amounted to 126.5 percent. Day after day, the plant was establishing production, those days it was located at 23, Novo-Basmannaya Str.
On May 8, 1943 the USSR People’s Commissar of the Meat and Dairy Industry P.V. Smirnov signed the order No. 292 on the organization of the endocrine preparations plant on the site of the Mikoyan Moscow Meat Processing Plant. This date is considered the official founding day of the current federal state unitary enterprise “Moscow Endocrine Plant”.
In October 1943, the endocrine preparations plant obtained state registration and was included in the list of self-supporting enterprises of the Mikoyan Meat Processing Plant.
At this time, Konstantin Dmitrievich Sinitsin, the plant director, approved the regulation on the new plant. The following tasks were assigned to the enterprise: construction of production, service and residential premises and structures necessary for the plant; manufacture of endocrine preparations for the supply of the Red Army and the Navy, as well as institutions of the People’s Commissariat of Health with endocrine preparations; settlement with suppliers for the delivered materials and supplies; procurement of raw materials for the manufacture of endocrine preparations and broth. The plant was granted a right to carry out its activities on the basis of self-financing with a standalone balance sheet, have a bank account and a seal indicating its name. Maxim Frantsevich Kovalevsky was appointed the first chief engineer of the enterprise.
In 1943, the enterprise manufactured the first 15 types of medicines worth more than 850 thousand rubles. Most of the manufactured batches of medicines were intended for women suffering from certain diseases. The production of raw insulin was one of the important areas of activity of the plant at that time. According to the report of the enterprise for 1943, the established target for gross output was hit by 110.8 percent.
All for the front, all for the victory
The Soviet troops won victories over the fascist invaders near Stalingrad and on the Kursk Bulge, and in other battles, and this added strength and energy to the plant workers. At that time, they took an active part in the mass patriotic movement to raise funds for the weaponization of the Red Army. “We give our savings for the construction of the Moscow tank column in order to clear our native land of fascist filth," said the plant workers at one of the rallies. And they walked the talk: the employees of the enterprise, together with other employees of the Mikoyan Meat Processing Plant, altruistically gave tens of thousands of rubles for the construction of tanks. In total, 602 thousand rubles were raised.
"All for the front, all for the victory", "Work is not done – don’t go home" – these were the main slogans of the plant workers. People often did not leave their workplaces, slept right in the workshops for 2-3 hours a day and then resumed work.
In 1944, new workshops equipped with modern equipment for that time, including foreign ones, were put into operation. Two Vulcan steam boilers, a Devine vacuum cabinet, tablet machines, an air compressor, a Borzig ammonia compressor, vacuum pumps of various systems, a Mayfert press, ampoule typewriters, a distillation column, 4 elevators with a carrying capacity of 560 kg, and other types of equipment and machinery were installed in the workshops.
The experimental laboratory established in 1943, where new medicines were being developed, also began to payback. Young qualified personnel strengthened the enterprise.
In 1944, the plant reached production record: the output in assortment for 1944 increased by 200 percent in comparison with that of 1943. In total, the plant manufactured 31 titles of medicines. Each of the medicines was manufactured in the name of the health of citizens. For example, hematogen manufactured from dry defibrinated blood of cattle helped improve the health of thousands of children during the difficult war and post-war years.
In the second half of 1944, the plant produced a pilot batch of liquid penicillin, an antibiotic so necessary for treating the wounded of the Red Army. The task was completed within two months – such a time limit was set for the specialists of the plant.
The produced penicillin was sent to the front, together with a group of pharmacological scientists, physicians and other specialists. They were set a task of evaluating the effectiveness and safety of Soviet industrially produced penicillin. N.N. Burdenko, the Chief Surgeon of the Red Army, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Colonel-General was the initiator of the study. The produced penicillin was assessed in the medical and sanitary battalions of divisions, field mobile hospitals, as well as the hospital base of the troops of the 1st Baltic Front. During the tests, an opinion about the beneficial effect of this strategically important medicine was confirmed. But it never came to be industrially produced, since at that time the enterprise did not have the necessary capacities. The plant resumed the manufacture of domestic antibacterial medicines after the war.
In 1944, the plant also produced 29 kilograms 550 grams of raw insulin. The production program was completed by 168.4 percent. Medicines worth 3.2 mln. rubles were produced.
The Motherland noticed the success of the employees of the enterprise. By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated October 28, 1944, for the exemplary accomplishment of government tasks for the development of the Soviet industry of organ preparations and the supply thereof to the Red Army, the Order of the Badge of Honor was awarded to the director of the plant Ivan Ivanovich Rykhlenkov, the chief engineer of the plant Leonid Iosifovich Golger, the head of the workshop Lyudmila Evgenievna Shelepina, the shop manager Anastasia Evgenievna Zefirova. Many plant workers were rewarded with certificates of honor, valuable gifts and cash prizes for high results in work.
For the plant workers, the year 1945 passed under the sign of the victories of the Red Army over fascist Germany. The joyful news coming from the fronts of the Great Patriotic War inspired people to new achievements. By that time, the plant already had a powerful production base. It consisted of seven main workshops: hormone, extracts, dry preparations, ampoule, packaging, uro-preparations and children’s hematogen workshops. There were also auxiliary workshops: mechanical repair, refrigeration units, machines, as well as an autonomous boiler room. A number of laboratories, including biological, bacteriological, experimental and chemical, operate. The enterprise employed 270 people, 48 of which were engineers and technical staff.
The industrial potential and the availability of qualified personnel allowed the enterprise to significantly increase its output. It increased by 2-3 times compared to previous years. Along with the medicines already produced, the plant has mastered the production of nine new medicines – in ampoules and vials.
A growth in labor productivity associated with the mechanization of manual processes was one of the factors that influenced the high performance. For example, a conveyor line was installed and put into operation in the packaging shop promoting the increase in labor productivity by almost 38 percent.
Laboratory workers made a significant contribution to the total performance of the enterprise by regularly testing the medicines being developed, which ensured the release of high-quality products. Specialists of biological and chemical laboratories carried out several thousand different analyzes and experiments in order to create new medicines.
The enterprise has done a lot to increase the profitability of production, its growth was mainly due to the low cost of production and the available raw material base.
The plant also had difficulties. However, the miseries and hardships of wartime taught the plant workers to overcome them firmly. Selfless labour in the name of the victory was the main task for the employees of the enterprise. In 1945, medicinal products in acute need for the front and the back areas were produced in the amount of 8 mln. 298 thousand rubles. The year of 1946 stood on the threshold. The first peaceful year after 1,418 days of hard and bloody war. The plant wrote new pages of work memorials.
Authors: Igor Bysenkov, Nikolai Kartashov.
Work with archival materials: Anna Bagrina.
To be continued in the issue dd. 10.06.2022
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