The Ministry of Health announced the completion of the formation of the National Price Catalog for Medicines in June
Already in June, Ukraine should complete the process of forming the National Catalog of Prices for Medicines — a tool that is expected to become the basis for controlling pricing in the pharmaceutical sector. About this reported Deputy Minister of Health Edem Adamanov.
“The first stage of the formation of the National Catalog has already begun, it is already being filled, and today it includes almost 400 medicinal products. In the absence of force majeure, the National Price Catalog will be fully formed in June, that is, at the end of June – in July, its final version will be published.” – explained the official.
According to him, the main goal of the catalog is to provide a transparent and objective determination of the cost of medicines for all market participants: patients, doctors, pharmacies and suppliers. The catalog will include reference prices that will be used as a base for public procurement and for determining the level of retail markups.
“External price referencing is exactly the approach used by many countries to understand the adequacy of the price by comparing it with neighboring countries. We also use such a tool as the national price catalog. Our citizens will in any case know how much this or that drug costs, and will always be able to check whether the price offered to them in the pharmacy is really adequate.” Adamanov emphasized.
The Ministry of Health expects that patients who need prescription drugs will be the first to feel the positive changes. It is these medicines that will be subject to stricter price regulation mechanisms to prevent speculative price increases and reduce the financial burden on people. One of the key initiatives is a proposal to completely ban the inclusion of marketing costs in the cost of prescription drugs.
“We reflected in the draft resolution, which went to public discussion, that the recipe cannot be marketed, this is absolutely unacceptable.” – emphasized the deputy minister.
We would like to remind that from March 1, in accordance with the decision of the NSDC and the Office of the President, to improve the availability of medicines in Ukraine, marginal mark-ups for pharmacies and distributors were introduced, as well as mandatory marketing payments, which were previously included in the final price of medicines, were canceled.
