OREANDA-NEWS. October 12, 2012. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine hosted a briefing on issues of quality, efficiency and affordability of medicines, with the participation of Raisa Moiseenko, First Deputy Health Minister and Oleksiy Soloviev, head of the State Service Ukraine on Medicinal Products.

"Ensuring the effectiveness, quality and affordability of medicines for people - one of the main tasks are being implemented by the Government and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to perform social initiatives of the President of Ukraine. Implementation of transformations in this area - is a series of systematic actions," said Raisa Moiseenko. "They provide not just pricing regulations on the pharmaceutical market, but compliance with international standards of quality and effectiveness of drugs, bringing up treatment standards at the European level, the return of public confidence in more affordable domestic medicines and increasing public awareness about their health and life."

As part of these objectives were adopted regulations that set limits for wholesale prices, expand the list of socially-oriented drugs, fixing differentiated retail surcharges to the purchase price depending on the cost of medicines and so on.

"An important step was the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government and domestic manufacturers of medicines. Implementation arrangements both sides has led to decline in prices for domestic medicines," said the State Service Ukraine on Medicinal Products Chairman Oleksiy Soloviev. "Thus, the average cost of the Ukrainian drugs included in the "National List of Essential Drugs and Products of Medical Purpose," for three months (from the date of signing of the Memorandum), has decreased by 17%, foreign - only 1%."

Regarding a quality assurance of medicines, there was approved a legislative solution, providing that from 1 January 2013, Ukraine will not be able to get access to the market of products, which do not meet international standards of GMP. With the introduction of these standards, our doctors and patients will be able to use drugs such as guaranteed high quality and efficiency, as the European Union citizens.

It is growing confidence of Ukrainian physicians and patients to drugs of domestic production. Thus, as compared to 2010, the consumption of drugs of Ukrainian manufacture has increased by 4, 63% with an overall amount of the market - 389 million packages (for 6 months in 2012).

The Ministry of Health of Ukraine has also stepped up efforts to improve treatment standards - bringing them to the European level. In particular, it is developed guidelines that expand capabilities of a physician in providing optimal patient treatment, helping to determine exactly the one medicament therapy which is most effective for the individual.

The target platform for working out all the tools of government policy to ensure quality and affordability of drugs is to introduce by Health Ministry of the Pilot Project to regulate prices of medicines for the treatment of patients with hypertension. Since the launch of the pilot project, the average cost of packaging of an antihypertensive drug decreased by 8%. Meanwhile, sales volumes of drugs against hypertension have increased by 13%.

"Reducing the cost of drugs in the course of project implementation and increasing their consumption indicate that government efforts to implement the project have been heard as by parties of the pharmaceutical market as well as patients. This means that in Ukraine it has been increased the number of patients with hypertension, who began systematically taking drugs, and thus prolonged their lives. After all, according to physicians, reducing of high pressure at least 5-10 mm Hg reduces the risk of complications from cardiovascular diseases by 38%," said Raisa Moiseenko.