The expert council on science and technology special economic zones of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation has approved SEZ Tomsk resident statuses for five innovation companies with total investment of $15.8m, innovation and venture news source UNOVA reports citing Tomsk region administration.

The new participants of the Tomsk SEZ are: Rusled with the project of creation of the center for development of energy saving light technologies; Sintegal with the project of development of innovative medicines for treating neurology diseases; Solveig Media with the project of development of software for editing videos in WEBM/HTML format; Tomsk Cell Technologies with the project of creation of autogenous vaccines for treating tuberculosis and oncologic diseases; Tomsk NII Project with the project of development of components of the National Program Platform.

According to their business-plans, total investment into their projects in Tomsk SEZ will reach about $15.8m and will create over 400 jobs.

In the nearest future agreements on operations in the Tomsk SEZ will be signed with these companies, and after that they will receive official resident statuses, regional officials said.

This way, 59 companies will get residency in the special economic zones.

In 2011 Tomsk region took the first place in the rating of innovation activity of Russia, made by the fund Petersburg Politics, the Russian Academy of Economy and Public Administration, and the newspaper RBC Daily.