OREANDA-NEWS. April 19, 2012.The Government will continue policy of an establishment in Ukraine fair prices for drugs and monitoring their quality. This was stated the First Deputy Health Minister Raisa Moiseenko at the briefing.

"Today, the Cabinet and the Ministry of Health are doing everything that we have affordable and the most fair prices for drugs - it is the main task of the state," emphasized Raisa Moiseenko, commenting on the introduction in Ukraine of the state regulation of prices for medicines.

According to her, the introduction of reference pricing is introduced in order "to cut off those not quite conscientious either pharmaceutical companies, or direct distributors offering too high prices for citizen or medical institutions for participation in the tender procurement, which in no way are based on those expenses that are directly spent by a manufacturer or supplier. "The Government is introducing the comparative prices so that we would have access for quality effective medicines to every citizen," the First Deputy Minister of Health underlined, adding that the issue of quality medicines in Ukraine at the state level is given considerable attention.

Raisa Moiseenko has noticed that having begun in early 2010 the check of medical facilities and manufacturers on presence of licenses to manufacture medicines in accordance with the requirements of GMP, their number was dropped by almost a quarter. "This is great work that the Government has implemented and which was being carried out methodically. Those manufacturers that do not meet European standards, to they has immediately been cancelled the licenses," she said.

The First Deputy Minister has noted that currently there are some problems in the pharmaceutical industry. "In particular, it is an economic area. For today, Ukraine has extremely liberal rules for the admission of foreign medicines in the domestic market. The share of imported products is almost 2.6 times higher than the national. At least 30% of medical products, assumed Ukraine's market, that is foreign production, do not confirmed by certificate GMP, and this work is to be conducted by the Government, the Ministry of Health, the State  Service for Medicines that should bring in a level playing field  both domestic and foreign drug manufacturers in the pharmaceutical market," she underlined.

Raisa Moiseenko has announced that from 15 foreign productions, which have been checked up by the State Service for Medicines during the past 4 months, 10 have not received confirmation of compliance with GMP. "This policy of the Ministry of Health, the Cabinet will be continued," she assured.

She has informed that currently 112 modern pharmaceutical companies operates in Ukraine, whose production meets GMP international standards, as well as 22 thousand pharmacies operates.  1 billion packs of finished medicinal products were sold for the previous year. The volume of the pharmaceutical market in 2011 has reached almost 27 billion UAH.