Stripped of bonuses: pharmacist sentenced to four years for salary allowances
The Nikulin court sentenced Svetlana Kopachevskaya, the former director of NPF Naukoprofi, a branch of the Blokhin Oncology Center, a leading Russian manufacturer of cancer drugs, to four years in a penal colony. She was found guilty of abuse of authority and illegal payments of bonuses to employees in the amount of 130 million rubles. Of this money, the director herself received 4 mnl. Kopachevskaya pleaded not guilty, and her defense intends to appeal the verdict.
Kopachevskaya's trial lasted almost a year
The district Court has been considering the case of Svetlana Kopachevskaya since July 21, 2025. However, in December last year, without starting the debate, the court unexpectedly, without explaining the reasons, stopped the hearings. The next meeting was held six months later. The judge held a debate on it for several hours and, after listening to the last word of the defendant, left for the verdict, promising to read it out on the same day.
The defendant, who came to court without the necessary things, clearly hoping for another postponement of the meeting, was completely unprepared for such a turn of events. In addition, the bailiffs refused to let the woman out of the hall, apparently fearing that she might escape. The bailiffs were not convinced by the lawyers' arguments that their client was prohibited from certain actions before sentencing and therefore had the right to leave the building.
Relatives of the former head of the Blokhin branch of the National Medical Center of Oncology (NMICO) had to urgently collect everything they needed. They handed the defendant a package of belongings a few minutes before the verdict was announced. Svetlana Kopachevskaya's belongings came in handy — the court found her guilty of abuse of authority and sentenced her to four years in a penal colony.
By illegally assigning and paying bonuses and allowances to herself and her employees, Kopachevskaya, according to the court, not only exceeded the limits of her official powers, but also violated the rights and legitimate interests of the parent organization, the Blokhin Oncology Center.
According to the verdict, the convict is obliged to pay the center the full amount of his claim — almost 130 million rubles.
What was Kopachevskaya accused of?
The investigation Department of the Department of Internal Affairs for the Southern District opened a criminal case against Svetlana Kopachevskaya on June 15, 2023. The police initially investigated the embezzlement of funds (Article 160 of the Criminal Code), but then reclassified the charge to abuse of office (Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code). The defendant faced up to ten years in prison.
According to the case file, the accused became the director of the Scientific and Production Branch (NPF) of the Blokhin Center in 2011. And although four years later the NPF turned into the pharmaceutical company Naukoprofi, it retained the status of a branch of the state organization.
According to information on the Naukoprofi website, it produces 13 drugs to fight cancer, and another ten are in development. The company controls the entire cycle of their creation: from molecule synthesis to mass production and marketing.
The case file refers to the events of 2017-2019, when the head of Naukoprofi illegally issued several orders to establish regulations on employee compensation in the company.
In accordance with them, so-called incentive payments and bonuses began to be paid to NPF employees.
At the same time, according to the case file, the defendant reliably knew that she had no right to such innovations and had to request permission from the director of the Blokhin National Center. And the head of the center, if he agreed, had to determine the amount of bonuses and payments. None of this has been done.
Instead, Kopachevskaya independently issued and signed orders to encourage Naukoprofi employees, instructed the chief accountant to create registers for crediting money to employees' cards, make payment orders, etc.
According to the investigation's calculations, the total amount of illegal payments over three years amounted to 129.6 million rubles. Kopachevskaya herself received about 4 million of this amount.
The amount paid is comparable to the total income of Naukoprofi for the specified period, it follows from the case file. According to the investigators, this money should have been used to solve the statutory tasks of the Blokhin Oncology Center itself.
Acted by proxy
Svetlana Kopachevskaya did not admit her guilt either during the investigation or during the court hearings, and speaking in the debate, she asked to be fully acquitted.
Her defense insisted that there was no corpus delicti in the actions of the director of Naukoprofi, and the introduction of incentive payments at the enterprise was a completely legitimate decision.
"When our client became the head of Naukoprofi, the salaries of employees were extremely low, and some were even paid below the minimum wage," Alexey Kasatkin, one of Kopachevskaya's lawyers, said in an interview with Izvestia.
The new payments allowed the head of the branch to retain the staff, while Kopachevskaya, her lawyer insists, acted solely within the framework of two powers of attorney issued to her by the director of the Blokhin Center — they allowed the head of the branch both to set the terms of remuneration and to represent employees for financial incentives.
"Their presence was established in court,— Kasatkin emphasized.
However, the court did not find these defense arguments convincing. Now the lawyers intend to appeal the verdict after receiving its full text.
As Dina Korabelnikova, partner of the NSN-Alliance law firm, noted in an interview with Izvestia, there have been noticeably more criminal cases involving budget spending by the heads of various medical institutions.
For example, shortly before Kopachevskaya's sentencing, the Rostov-on-Don court sentenced Evgeny Glumov, the former chief physician of the regional oncological dispensary, to two years in a penal colony. He sent more than 6 million rubles allocated for the purchase of cancer drugs, for the purchase of other medicines.
The state's priority is to control the targeted use of funds, but at the same time, the investigation needs to understand the specifics of the industry, Korabelnikova is sure, and carefully select the evidence base, especially when it comes to harsh sentences related to imprisonment.
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