On August 23, within the framework of the Commission of the General Council of the «UNITED RUSSIA» Party on Healthcare, a meeting was held on the topic «The effectiveness of the drug movement monitoring (DMM) for the healthcare system and pharmaceutical industry enterprises.»
Sergey Glagolev, Deputy Minister of Health, speaking at the meeting, noted that labeling allows avoiding the risks of drug shortages and ensuring their quality and is currently a mandatory licensing requirement for pharmaceutical organizations, administrative liability is fixed for not entering entering or late entry of data on the drug. «Practically all participants in the drug circulation are covered by the labeling system. To date, drugs that were not labeled, which were introduced during the optional labeling period, have left the circulation, and 99.9% of medicine packages are now visible to us through DMM systems,» he said.
However, the issue of the effectiveness of drug labeling and the reliability of the data provided by the system, today, in the context of sanctions pressure on Russia, when the need to ensure drug independence has become one of the indispensable conditions for national security and sovereignty of the Russian Federation, sounds particularly acute. A serious problem that prevents the system from working effectively is the untimely entry of data on medicines into the State Register of Medicines (SRM) and Unified structured directory-catalog of medicines (USDCM), which leads to desynchronization with the DMM system. ARPM twice (in April and July) sent letters on this issue to the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, but «things are still there.»
In his speech, Sergei Glagolev confirmed the existing problem and assured that it would be resolved within a month. In response to this, Chairman of the Public Council under the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare (Roszdravnadzor), Director General of the ARPM Victor Dmitriev stated: “Exactly in a month, namely on September 23, 2022, the Association of Russian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers will celebrate its 20th anniversary. I am sure that the solution of the issue, which Sergey Vladimirovich highlighted, will be the best gift not only to the members of the Association, but to the entire pharmaceutical market.”
During the meeting, it was also noted that the Ministry of Health supported the initiative of the United Russia General Council Commission on Health, headed by Denis Protsenko, to introduce a budget line for additional funding for patients with cardiovascular diseases.
In addition, within the framework of the bill, also proposed by United Russia, a remote pilot project for the remote sale of prescription drugs will start in March next year in Moscow, the Moscow and Belgorod regions.