
Prime Minister promises to punish companies for overpricing medicines in defiance of the Government's decision on reference pricing
Prime
Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman
warns pharmaceutical companies of responsibility for the inflated prices for
medicines in defiance of the Government's decision on reference pricing for
medicines. The Head of Government announced on air of TV channel "112
Ukraine" on Wednesday evening.
Volodymyr
Groysman said he was going to punish any company importing
medicines and trying to overprice them and promised to gather the forces of the
entire law enforcement system to make these companies understand they have no
right to treat the Ukrainian citizens the way they do. “I think here we’ll put
things in order very quickly," stressed the Prime Minister.
The Head of
Government noted that the Government had approved an ordinance on the
introduction of a reference pricing for drugs: "We have obliged to form
the price in Ukraine calculating as an average price in the five countries we
border on. This means it will be the upper limit, and it’s impossible to fix
the price above this limit."
At that, the
PM supposes that this will entail "the struggle" on the part of
participants of the pharmaceutical market and that they "will begin to play
with artificial scarcity of drugs."
He noted that
he had met with pharmacists and urged them not to create such troublesome situation
in the country.
Volodymyr
Groysman noted that the same medication having
similar component taking into account the active substance in the neighboring with
Ukraine countries such as the Baltic States, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary appear
by 30-50% cheaper, than in Ukraine.
This overpricing
occurred through a monopoly on the importation of drugs and the lack of real
competition and the market, said the Head of Government.
"Those
who control the supply of drugs into Ukraine, always earned huge amounts of
money, shared with authorities, so the government created unbearable conditions
for the importation of drugs,” explained the Prime Minister. “Our producers
were trying to survive in these conditions, but the real market was absent."