People's Deputy Serhiy Kuzminykh registered draft law No. 13684 "On Pharmacy Activity" in the Verkhovna Rada. The legislative initiative is presented as a reform designed to increase the availability of medicines, but its content is more like a targeted blow to Ukrainian pharmacies, reports UNN.
The text of the draft law on pharmacies, authored and solely signed by Serhiy Kuzminykh, provides for strict restrictions. Thus, the MP proposes to limit the number of permitted pharmacies – no more than four "in one hand." In addition, he demands that all pharmacy owners have a pharmaceutical education. That is, investors and entrepreneurs, according to Kuzminykh's plan, should be forced out of the market. Moreover, the MP also wants to limit the range of goods that can be sold in pharmacies. Economist Andriy Novak, in an exclusive comment for UNN, noted that Kuzminykh's draft law does not comply with the principles of a market economy, restricts the freedom of action of a private owner, and is fundamentally absurd. After all, it will lead to an increase in the price of medicines.
Limiting the number of pharmacies per owner and limiting or obliging to personally manage a pharmacy – I believe that such initiatives are simply absurd. We are in a market economy. Where the main element is the inviolability of private property and the freedom of action of a private owner. If you create some restrictions that one owner can have 4 pharmacies, and 5 already cannot – this is already a violation of the basic principles of a market economy. In addition, the larger the pharmacy chain, the less markup it can make on medicines. That is, for the consumer, the more large pharmacy chains, the better. Therefore, for both business and society – such draft laws are simply absurd.
If this draft law is adopted, the consequences are obvious: mass closure of pharmacies, reduction of tax revenues to the budget, increase in unemployment among pharmacists, and "fragmentation" of businesses into individual entrepreneurs to circumvent new restrictions. In wartime, when every hryvnia in the budget is critical, such decisions look not just harmful – they are dangerous for the state.
If the restrictions on the number of pharmacies per owner are indeed adopted, it will lead to a mass closure of pharmacies. And, accordingly, a reduction in jobs, i.e., an increase in unemployment and a decrease in tax revenues, including from pharmacies.
So, a logical question arises: "Why is Kuzminykh harming Ukraine and Ukrainians with his legislative activity?" The answer lies "on the surface," in the public statements of the MP himself. Which, by a strange coincidence, almost completely coincide with the position of the pharmaceutical giant "Darnytsia."
The similarity of wording, figures, and arguments is so striking that it is difficult to believe in coincidence. Such a "coincidence" of rhetoric between the MP and the pharmaceutical giant "Darnytsia" makes us think that the MP may be part of a systemic campaign aimed at weakening pharmacies and strengthening the position of the pharmaceutical giant "Darnytsia."
Another reason for concluding that Kuzminykh may be a "pawn" on the chessboard of the pharmaceutical market in the hands of "Darnytsia" is their long-standing relationship. Which began almost 10 years ago, so, in 2016-2018, the Kuzminykh brothers' charitable foundation received more than 9.5 million UAH from the "Zagoriys Family Charitable Foundation," the owners of "Darnytsia." At that time, Kuzminykh worked in the Ministry of Health commission, which made decisions on registration certificates for medicines. The NACP even officially reported a possible conflict of interest. Today, history repeats itself: the deputy's legislative initiatives again look primarily beneficial to "Darnytsia," not Ukrainians.
Another ambiguous aspect in this story is the figure of Kuzminykh himself. The deputy has been on trial for almost three years for a bribe of UAH 558,000. According to the investigation, he received money for facilitating the conclusion of contracts between private companies and a hospital. Thus, out of 87 meetings, more than half were disrupted due to Kuzminykh's "sudden illnesses" or business trips.
So we have a paradox: a person who has been on trial for several years for a bribe of more than half a million in the medical field has not only not been removed from lawmaking, but has been allowed to redraw the rules of the pharmaceutical market. And now the scandalous MP-bribe-taker Serhiy Kuzminykh, instead of answering to the law, is promoting draft laws that pose a direct economic threat to the state, because due to his initiatives, tax revenues from pharmacies will fall, and unemployment will grow due to the closure of a large number of pharmacies.
And while Kuzminykh is delaying the consideration of the bribery case, he continues to illegally influence the healthcare sector. Fighting for the interests of pharmaceutical giants, not patients.