Pharmaceutical lobbying under cover: how the new drug bill could hit patients

People's Deputy Serhiy Kuzminykh, head of the subcommittee on pharmacy, prepared a draft law on amendments to Article 20-1 of the Law of Ukraine "On Medicinal Products" allegedly to prevent price increases for medicines. The document has not yet been registered, but UNN received a copy from its own sources.

If you look at the text of the potential draft law, the essence of the initiative looks like a concern for the patient: allegedly, the government will receive the right to set a maximum percentage of marketing payments to regulate the market. But a detailed study of the legislative initiative makes it clear that under the guise of fighting for affordable prices, Kuzminykh seems to be once again promoting the interests of the pharmaceutical giant "Darnytsia", for which such changes open up additional opportunities to influence the market.

In the explanatory note to the as yet unregistered draft law, Kuzminykh claims that marketing services are one of the key reasons for the increase in drug prices. And this is despite the fact that marketing agreements between manufacturers and pharmacies have been prohibited in Ukraine since March 1, 2025. However, Kuzminykh does not back down and continues to use "polished" theses not only in his social media posts, but also in the explanatory note to the draft law. At the same time, he completely ignores the fact that the ban on marketing agreements did not yield the expected result – a reduction in drug prices, which the Ministry of Health has already acknowledged.

Moreover, the opposite happened – the cost of drugs is increasing. After all, manufacturers who undertook to reduce wholesale drug prices after the marketing ban did not do so. Instead, according to experts, they began to earn 500 million UAH more per month.

Thus, it becomes obvious that such changes are beneficial not to Ukrainians, but to pharmaceutical giants who have increased their own earnings. And as soon as the government started talking about the possible return of marketing payments, they raised the alarm and are already preventively trying to ban them, without even waiting for a real return.

In addition, Kuzminykh openly states in the explanatory note to the draft law that pharmacies are the main culprits of inflated prices. He even cites the fact that allegedly from 100 UAH, pharmacies raise the price of medicines to 380 UAH.

However, the facts show otherwise: more than 71% of the cost of medicines is formed at the level of pharmaceutical manufacturers, while the share of pharmacies in the cost is approximately 20%. That is, pharmacies physically cannot be the main drivers of price increases. After all, the final price primarily depends on the manufacturers' policy. However, Kuzminykh conveniently "does not notice" this and openly speculates with facts.

Another manipulation by the people's deputy, who is keenly interested in any medical topics in the country, is the thesis that allegedly representatives of patient organizations and organizations of drug consumers advocated a complete ban on marketing payments. However, in the text of the explanatory note itself, Kuzminykh does not name specific organizations or specific names of their representatives. It seems that these "voices of patients" sound only in Kuzminykh's head.

There are many questions regarding the forecasts of the socio-economic consequences of the adoption of the draft law prepared by Kuzminykh. After all, one of the first points the people's deputy highlights is the increase in the geographical accessibility of pharmacies in rural areas and remote communities. Again, turning a blind eye to the fact that it was precisely because of the ban on marketing payments that pharmacies were forced to close pharmacy points in villages and towns, as well as stop the work of mobile pharmacies, which, in particular, provided medicines to villages in Kharkiv and Kherson regions. Such steps had to be taken precisely because marketing payments, as such, made it possible for pharmacies to ensure the existence of unprofitable pharmacy points and expensive projects, which are primarily mobile points. After all, maintaining one such costs about 100 thousand UAH per month, while the revenue from sales does not cover the costs. Additionally, the cost is affected by requirements for special refrigerators, generators, Starlink, and even EW equipment. The cost of a fully equipped car is 1.45 million UAH.

However, instead of raising the issue of transparency of drug pricing in pharmaceutical companies, looking for new tools that can really reduce drug prices for Ukrainians, Kuzminykh continues to promote the ban on marketing in pharmacies.

It seems that this is more about lobbying interests and illegal influence than about trying to really solve the problem of drug accessibility for patients.