People's Deputy Serhiy Kuzminykh, head of the parliamentary subcommittee on pharmacy, has been actively making loud statements about lowering drug prices in recent months. However, an analysis of his public speeches and social media posts shows that the MP's theses contradict each other, UNN reports.
MP Kuzminykh repeatedly states that marketing agreements between pharmacies and manufacturers are the main evil that allegedly contributes to rising drug prices. However, these agreements have been banned by the government since March 1, 2025 (editor's note: almost 6 months). However, the result in terms of increased drug availability has not materialized. The Ministry of Health confirms: this ban did not have the expected effect, prices did not decrease, and for many positions, they even increased. Therefore, the market began to actively discuss bringing back marketing. After all, it is obvious that it does not affect the cost of drugs. So, new mechanisms and tools should be involved.
However, Kuzminykh constantly says, "marketing must be banned, drug prices are rising because of it." At the same time, he conveniently omits the main thing - the cost of drugs is increasing even though there has been no marketing in the market for almost six months. So the question arises: is the MP, who should act in the interests of Ukrainians, really interested in lowering drug prices? Or is it possible that he is acting in someone else's interests?
And while marketing has not been restored, patients, in addition to rising drug prices, have also lost loyalty programs and discounts that pharmacies guaranteed precisely due to marketing payments. Moreover, one of the pharmacy chains even announced that it was forced to stop the operation of two of its mobile pharmacies, which provided medicines to villages in Kharkiv and Kherson regions. As reported by representatives of the chain, the reason for this decision was legislative changes, in particular, increased regulation and the abolition of marketing agreements. This sharply reduced the income of stationary pharmacies, at the expense of which mobile points were financed.
After all, maintaining one mobile pharmacy point costs about UAH 100,000 per month, while sales revenue does not cover expenses. Additionally, the cost is affected by requirements for special refrigerators, generators, Starlink, and even electronic warfare equipment. The cost of a fully equipped car is UAH 1.45 million.
Thus, given such expenses, the mobile pharmacy in Kherson region stopped working on July 15, and in Kharkiv region on July 29. As a result, residents of 52 settlements in 7 communities of Kherson region were left without access to medicines. In Kharkiv region, only one mobile pharmacy point is currently operating, serving 92 villages, but now it will be able to visit each of them only once every 17 days. Due to lack of funding, there is a risk of its shutdown as well.
But Kuzminykh pretends not to notice anything. So such one-sidedness of statements, ignoring the fact that the ban on marketing put the market in a "coma" and negatively affected the overall situation with drug prices, may have an explanation.
As UNN wrote earlier, the Kuzminykh brothers' charitable foundation received over UAH 9.5 million from the Zagoriy family foundation – owners of the pharmaceutical giant "Darnytsia" – in 2016–2018. Today, it seems, the MP is promoting initiatives that are directly beneficial to this pharmaceutical giant, and even uses identical wording in his statements.
It seems that under the slogans of "fighting for the patient," the MP is actually implementing "Darnytsia's" plan to redistribute the market: displacing competitors, pressuring pharmacies, monopolizing shelves. Kuzminykh's and "Darnytsia's" rhetoric coincides so much that lawyers are already talking about the possibility of a linguistic examination to establish the real authorship of the statements.
Given all this, his double standards regarding the pharmaceutical market look not like concern for people, but like fulfilling an order from big business.
While Kuzminykh is fighting the "ghosts" of marketing agreements, drug prices remain high, pharmacies in the regions are closing, and the profits of large manufacturers are growing. In this game, Kuzminykh's voter ends up last on the list of priorities.
Recall
The MP has another unpleasant background – a criminal case regarding his receipt of a half-million bribe, which the High Anti-Corruption Court has been hearing for almost three years. According to the investigation, Kuzminykh received a "kickback" for promising to "resolve" the purchase of medical equipment for one of the Zhytomyr hospitals for a private enterprise. However, the consideration of the case is actively being delayed by Kuzminykh and his lawyers. The prosecutor in the case has even asked the court to apply a compulsory summons to Kuzminykh, as he has disrupted more than half of the court hearings by not appearing.