The state should promote competition between drug manufacturers to make medicines more affordable for Ukrainians, as artificial price regulation through administrative restrictions does not have the expected effect. This was stated by Inna Ivanenko, Executive Director of the CF "Patients of Ukraine", in an exclusive commentary to UNN.
In order to reduce prices in Ukrainian pharmacies, it is necessary to promote natural competition between different manufacturers on the Ukrainian market. Artificial regulation of the market through price restrictions is ineffective. Ukraine has already had such experience in the past, which did not achieve its results. The most effective way to reduce prices is to promote competition between producers
According to her, another tool to reduce prices for innovative medicines is managed access agreements (MAAs), which allow the state to negotiate directly with manufacturers to purchase modern drugs at the lowest prices. However, as Ms. Ivanenko emphasized, this mechanism is not used enough.
In addition, another mechanism to reduce the cost of medicines is parallel imports, which allows procurement of medicines in the EU for public and hospital needs. However, this mechanism does not apply to pharmacy procurement, which does not allow for lower prices for the end user.
"The patients' community continues to emphasize that the parallel import mechanism should be introduced for all procurement of medicines in Ukraine," emphasized Ivanenko.
She added that Ukraine should be more active in borrowing European experience to reduce prices and improve access to medicines.
Context
On January 24, at a meeting of the Committee on National Health, Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Lyashko presented a concept for reforming the regulation of the pharmaceutical market. The Ministry of Health's proposals included reducing the price of medicines through electronic trading between manufacturers, limiting the size of discounts, and banning retro bonuses. Not all of the proposed changes were to the liking of MPs, so it was decided to develop a separate draft law that would cover all aspects of the pharmaceutical market. It should take into account the rights and obligations of manufacturers, distributors and pharmacy chains.
At the meeting, the MPs noted that it is the manufacturer that forms up to 70% of the cost of medicines.