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."