The state emerging from an insulin coma? “Indar”: the case history of a unique factory

29 October, head of the State Property Fund Dmytro Natalukha announced big news: “In a sense today is a historic day in the context of one particular enterprise, control of which the state lost for decades. The magnitude of today’s changes we will only be able to assess later; I will tell more in a few days.”

But Natalukha did not manage to keep the intrigue for long. It quickly became known which enterprise was meant, and events around it developed very rapidly. The next day the head of the Fund revealed all the details.

It was about the only full-cycle insulin manufacturer in Ukraine – the Kyiv plant Indar. 70% of the plant’s shares are state-owned, but de facto the state as majority owner for many years effectively did not control the enterprise.

According to Natalukha, the long-serving director of Indar, Liubov Vyshnevska, appointed back in the Yanukovych era, for more than ten years ran the plant “into the ground.” The head of the State Property Fund claims that management deliberately blocked the state’s attempts in courts to restore control over the enterprise. And at the same time drove the plant toward bankruptcy in order to sell it cheaply to the minority shareholder.

In June this year the State Property Fund successfully challenged in courts the legal scheme used by management that blocked an open auction and effectively required the state stake to be sold to a single buyer. And this month it was possible to restore the powers of Indar’s supervisory board, which on 27 October finally decided to change the plant’s management.

However, the attempt to introduce the plant collective to the new head, Ihor Matyunin, on 29 October resembled not-so-distant times when the fight for control over an enterprise went far beyond corporate procedures. There were no “thugs,” but representatives of the State Property Fund and the new management had to involve the National Police.

The team of the State Property Fund together with the new director and with participation of the National Police enter the Indar plant

According to Natalukha, the former director, despite the supervisory board’s decision to terminate her powers, continued to give instructions to employees. When representatives of the Fund and the new director arrived at the enterprise, it turned out that 27 hard drives had disappeared from the servers.

According to Dmytro Natalukha, more than 20 hard drives were removed from the plant’s server room…

… They were later found in a box in the trunk of a car that had been parked out of view of the cameras

They were later found in a box in the trunk of a company vehicle that had been parked out of the surveillance cameras’ view. Also, the head of the Fund claims, the former director tried to carry out court documents related to sanctioned and seized property under the guise of… the “medical history of her father.” Until night, Fund representatives, the new management and law enforcement officers sealed key offices of the enterprise.

Liubov Vyshnevska, who had run Indar for more than ten years, under pressure from the State Property Fund and law enforcement was forced to step down from management

The next task for Indar’s new management is to regain control over the seals, digital signatures, accounting and personnel documents. It must also conduct a full audit of the plant’s activities over the past ten years. Given the long-standing battles around Indar, it is worth expecting that many interesting circumstances will be uncovered.

Restoring state control over Indar can be called a success for the State Property Fund team that has been working since January. This interim victory was especially needed by Natalukha against the backdrop of the recent failure to privatize the Odesa Port Plant and two enterprises of former Russian owners – Motordetal-Konotop and Demurinsky GOK.

And the key task for which the whole special operation around Indar was prepared and carried out is to find an investor who will ultimately buy the strategic but still “toxic” state asset. So far the baggage of problems trailing Indar has scared off potential buyers. Moreover, over years of managerial uncertainty the enterprise has significantly lost its positions: if earlier its share of the Ukrainian insulin market reached about 70%, it has now fallen to approximately 5%.

Why does an enterprise created to provide millions of Ukrainians with life‑saving medicines today itself need rescuing? To understand this, we need to go back several decades — to when Indar’s story was just beginning.

Insulin passions

The Cabinet of Ministers decided to establish domestic insulin production in 1997. The enterprise was placed on the territory of the former Kyiv Meat Processing Plant in Darnytsia. The state received a controlling stake — over 70% — the rest went to the meat plant and was later sold to Polish investors (the pharmaceutical concern Bioton S.A.). The first director of the plant was Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Oleksii Lazaryev. Under his leadership Indar quickly closed the country’s insulin shortage and even exported products.

However, later corporate wars began around the profitable enterprise. In 2008 the state stake in Indar, through a debt scheme, ended up with the British company Gerist Invest Limited. As reported by EP, the basis for the alienation was debts on promissory notes issued by Ukrmedprom — the state enterprise through which the state owned its share in the plant. Later Gerist Invest Limited signed a donation agreement transferring its shares to the offshore structure Storke Holdings Limited.

In July 2011 the plant was forcefully seized by Berkut fighters. After that the enterprise came under the control of new owners, and then-director Lazaryev was removed from leadership.

There were rumors that behind the raider takeover under the cover of offshores stood Russian businessman Ihor Salo, who was linked to Viktor Medvedchuk. The scandal grew so loud that even Yanukovych’s authorities had to react. In the autumn of 2011 the court returned the plant to state ownership, and in March 2012 at the first shareholders’ meeting in five years the director appointed was the aforementioned Liubov Vyshnevska. Before that she had run the private pharmaceutical company Ridan Engineering. Vyshnevska was presented then as a crisis manager tasked with restoring stable operation of the plant. Few could have imagined she would hold the post for nearly one and a half decades.

After 2014 and Yanukovych’s flight from the country, the new authorities several times tried to remove Vyshnevska from her post. She was even temporarily suspended, accused of ignoring supervisory board decisions, sabotaging shareholders’ meetings and manipulating public procurement. But the businesswoman clung to her seat and returned to the office through the courts.

In 2014 then Minister of Health Oleh Musii publicly accused the head of Indar of ignoring state decisions and effectively removing the Ministry of Health from control over the enterprise. According to him, despite the fact that 70,7% of the plant’s shares belonged to the state, Vyshnevska behaved as if the enterprise were her private property.

The minister also spoke of possible abuses around multimillion financial flows of the plant and an international contract to build insulin production in Brazil. Musii was convinced that Vyshnevska’s immunity was guaranteed by her lobbyists in the Verkhovna Rada and “appointees of the previous authorities.” As a result, the head of Indar outlasted not only Musii but many of his successors at the Ministry of Health.

In 2016 the plant’s minority shareholder changed: a 30-percent stake from the Poles was bought by businessman David Bezhuashvili — a former member of the Georgian parliament, brother of former foreign minister and ex-head of Georgia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Gela Bezhuashvili. According to NashI Hroshi, the new Indar shareholder might not have been a stranger to Vyshnevska: one of his Ukrainian firms, LLC Ukrainian Energy Company, was previously called Energoagroprompostach and belonged to Viktor Vyshnevskyi, the director’s father. Subsequent events reinforced suspicions of a joint game between the new shareholder and the plant’s director.

Minority shareholder of Indar, Georgian businessman David Bezhuashvili

After Bezhuashvili appeared in Indar, privatization of the plant effectively reached a deadlock. In 2018 Indar was included in the list of large privatization objects and formally transferred to the management of the State Property Fund. However, at the shareholders’ meeting in October 2018, where the state’s interests were represented by PJSC Ukrmedprom, Bezhuashvili as a minority owner obtained the preemptive right to buy the state’s block of shares without an auction. This provision effectively blocked open privatization of the enterprise.

Added to the calendar

Only in 2025 did the State Property Fund cancel preferences for Bezhuashvili and issue an order for a new privatization of Indar. But the minority shareholder annulled that order through the courts.

In 2026 the Fund, with a new director, announced another attempt to sell Indar. Reporting on one hundred days in office, Natalukha published the large privatization calendar for the year: among six assets listed, Indar is planned to be offered last — at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027.

Prospects for that plan, despite the obvious shift from a deadlock, are ambiguous. On one hand, none of this year’s large privatization objects put up for sale were actually sold. SumiKhimProm, the Odesa Port Plant, Demurinsky GOK — not least due to a sharp deterioration of the security situation — simply found no buyers. It seems the same fate awaits Ocean Plaza shopping mall and the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, which are also on the privatization plan-2026.

But Indar has a significant advantage over the listed objects — it is the cheapest among them. For the only insulin plant in the country the state planned to ask only $24 million. That amount is more than four times less than for Ocean Plaza or OPP.

Moreover, the State Property Fund at least managed to clear the legal obstacles that had been blocking Indar’s privatization. The first shareholders’ meeting in eight years was held, the supervisory board’s work was unblocked, and the plant’s management changed.

But a no less difficult stage lies ahead. Besides repelling likely court attacks, the new management will have to figure out what actually remains of the enterprise after years of opaque governance. After all, a potential investor will need to be convinced why they should pay over $20 million.

Resuscitation measures

And the first results of the inspection already raise questions. Natalukha held a short press conference during a tour of the plant, to which Glavkom was invited. A police squad was stationed by the plant entrance as a reminder of the previous day’s conflict. Journalists were shown warehouses with the plant’s finished products and were answered questions about product quality control. There were some oddities: journalists noticed Russian-language labels on medicine packaging. Technologists explained that these products are intended for export to post-Soviet Asian countries.

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Indar plant

photo: Stanislav Hruzdev, glavcom.ua

However, the head of the State Property Fund did not wait for the tour to finish and quickly left after the press conference on business. Natalukha said that in a few days the new team had already identified at least one suspicious episode related to the plant’s financial relations with a private company. According to him, one of Indar’s commercial counterparties owes the enterprise more than 72 million hryvnias. Almost 69 million of that sum is unrepaid interest-free financial assistance.

At the same time, Natalukha asserts there are documents indicating that the private company was preparing for bankruptcy, and the audit revealed family ties between its management and one of the officials of Indar’s previous leadership.

“That is, the enterprise provided funds to private companies, certain debt was created, after which those companies went bankrupt and did not return the money,” the head of the Fund protested. “And this is just one episode that is now being worked on.”

The head of the State Property Fund introduced Indar’s collective to the new director Ihor Matyunin

photo: Stanislav Hruzdev, glavcom.ua

After gaining access to documentation and assessing the plant’s actual condition, the current value of the state’s stake ($24 million) may also be revised.

“Obviously, we plan to update the valuation according to the condition and situation the enterprise is in. This is one of the tasks — to understand the asset’s status and its value in order to make strategic decisions about its future,” the head of the Fund said. At the same time he assured that the private package of 30% of shares will remain with its owner.

The noticeably moved new director of Indar, Ihor Matyunin, said he has already met the staff and considers it highly professional.

“The main priority is to preserve production volumes, maintain product quality and keep the workforce. No personnel changes are planned because people in their positions are fulfilling their duties,” he said. At the same time the newly appointed head of Indar was surprised by the not-very-high wages at the enterprise and promised to review both conditions and pay.

Asked about current insulin production volumes and the number of products the plant supplies to the market, Matyunin did not give specific figures. According to him, the new management first needs to ensure continuity of production and proper product quality.

For now no changes to technological processes are planned. According to Matyunin, management will focus on analyzing the enterprise’s operations and maintaining current production volumes. “And then, of course, we will increase both production volumes and sales markets, because this enterprise has very large potential,” the new head of Indar said.

While the new management deals with the legacy it inherited, there are, according to the head of the State Property Fund, no concrete potential buyers or investment proposals for the scandal-plagued enterprise.

Pavlo Vuyets, Glavkom