OREANDA-NEWS. January 18, 2012. State procurement of medicines in 2012 year will be held in the planned regime, without disruption and panic, Deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine Galyna Kalishenko said in an interview.

"The Ministry of Health’ actions will be aimed at improving state procurement, ensuring transparency of tenders and lowering prices for medicines", - Deputy Minister of Health said.

According to her since 2011 year the Ministry has started to optimize the range of procurement of drugs. From May to the end of the year established all necessary agreements for the full amount provided for state budget-2011. Moreover, last year it was managed to reduce prices of medicines which are purchased at state expense and to achieve significant cost savings: in total 1.9 billion UAH under the 2011 state budget, the savings on programs has reached 155 million UAH.

Galyna Kalishenko noted that last year was significantly expanded the list of companies participating in the auction - to 70 firms. This creates the conditions for healthy competition and hence this reduces the cost of medicines.

One of the positive trends of last year is the establishing contacts directly with Ukrainian manufacturers of medicines. Among them: pharmaceutical company "Darnitsa" and "Lugansk Chemical-Pharmaceutical Plant", which had worked through dealers.

Also, the Ministry managed to establish a methodical and effective work with suppliers, so that in 2011 year 1/3 of all deliveries took place early.