“While chasing technological advances and innovations in pharmaceutical industry it is important to still support medicines from the “cheap” sector of the marker. The analysis identified that it is those medicines that have the most demand on the market and account for over 70% of state purchases,” said ARPM Director General, Victor Dmitriev at the Forum of innovative technologies InfoSpace.

    Holding prices for the medicines from the List of essential medicines led to the condition where it became no longer profitable. Therefore, the Russian pharmaceutical market was left without domestic nystatin drugs. Therefore, it is time to come up with a way to save the balance between supporting old medicines and investing in innovation.

    Mr. Dmitriev also noted that the mechanism of drug distribution should be corrected. The current program regulates medicine distribution right up to the point when a medical facility receives it. There is no control of whether a patient uses it or not. A constant communication between business, patients, and state regulators is important for further improvement of the system.

    Other participants of the forum agreed with Mr. Dmitriev saying that a more strict control of prices for the medicines from the Essential list could lead to the deficit of those medicines.

    The inconstant situation about the cheap medicines was discussed in the presentation given by Deputy Director of the Department of Control of implementation of State programs under the Riszdravadzor, Georgy Petrochenkov. According to Mr. Petrochenkov, the price on packed for  the ambulatory segment of the List of essential medicines on average increased by 7.8%. However, in the lowest, price segment (under 50 Rubles per package) the price increased by 16%.