OREANDA-NEWS.  March 15, 2013. Exercising state control over compliance with the antimonopoly law by the authorities of the Belgorod region, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) identified certain signs of non-conformity of the Order of the Governor of the Belgorod region “On Increasing Inter-Branch Interactions for Control of the Quality of Medical Drugs and Substances and Decriminalization of the Pharmaceuticals Market” of 28th December 2007 to the law of the Russian Federation.

Clause 2 of the Order requested “the Centre for Quality Control and Drug Certification” State Health Care Institution to make arrangements towards decriminalizing the pharmaceutical market and preventing entry of poor-quality, counterfeit, faked and faulty drugs to the regional wholesale-and-retail network and prevention-and-treatment facilities in the region.

At the same time, under the law of the Russian Federation, the functions for control and supervision over health care, including the functions for quality control and drug safety monitoring is exercised by Roszdravnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision of Public Health and Social Development).

FAS asked the Governor of the Belgorod region to adjust the Order in accordance with the federal laws because Part 3 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” prohibits assigning the functions and the rights of the bodies of state control and supervision to economic entities.

On 5th March 2013, FAS was notified that the Order of the Governor of the Belgorod region of 28th December 2007 ceased to be in force.