Millions "on medicines for the state": pharmaceutical giants are suspected of criminal schemes with a distributor

Pharmaceutical companies, where law enforcement officers conducted searches at the end of February, are suspected of misappropriating and legalizing more than 3 million hryvnias of state funds. This was reported to UNN by the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office in response to an official request.

Details

According to the prosecutor's office, the investigation is being conducted on the grounds of criminal offenses under Part 4 of Article 191 and Part 2 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. It concerns the possible misappropriation of state and budget funds by officials of pharmaceutical manufacturers, who, according to the investigation, entered into a criminal conspiracy with representatives of one of the distributors in the western regions of Ukraine.

According to the case files, officials established an illegal mechanism for selling medicines at inflated prices to state and municipal medical institutions, which subsequently made it possible to seize funds and legalize them.

As a result of actions that qualify as abuse of office and money laundering, the budget suffered losses of UAH 3.15 million. Five people in this case have already been notified of suspicion of legalization (laundering) of proceeds of crime. The investigation is ongoing.

It is interesting that the subject of the case was "only" UAH 3.15 million - against the background of the financial indicators of the defendants, this amount looks more like small change. For example, according to the Opendatabot service, in 2024 the income of "Darnitsa" amounted to over UAH 6.8 billion, "Farmak" - UAH 10.7 billion, and "Arterium" - UAH 5.2 billion. As they say, for coffee from the corporate budget - and even then not for everyone.

People's Deputy Mykhailo Tsymbalyuk in a comment to UNN stated that he considers the actions of drug manufacturers not just unacceptable, but a crime during the war.

Today, the pharmaceutical business has become surprisingly very profitable, although given the war, the large number of wounded, both military and civilian, it should generally be at the level of profitability and with a small profit, let it be 15-20%. And what is happening now is unacceptable, it is an outrage, it is a crime during the war and the withdrawal of funds abroad by pharmaceutical companies, among others. It is strange that this is happening in our domestic companies 

In his opinion, it is very important that after the NSDC decision, the Minister of Health and the government as a whole carefully investigate where there was an overestimation of prices for medicines and whether it was objective.

Because there is a fierce resistance, some of the same pharmaceutical companies have generally withheld some medicines in order to stir up people, to show that there is pressure on business. Although, in fact, this is not the case at all 

Let us remind you

At the end of February, law enforcement officers searched the Darnitsa, Farmak, and Arterium pharmaceutical plants in Kyiv. The name of the fourth enterprise where the investigative actions also took place has not yet been officially disclosed.