Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers has allowed the sale of ending stocks of medicines eligible to reimbursement. They were delivered to pharmacy chains at the wholesale prices exceeding the upper limit set in Ukrainian law before February 1, 2017.
Presenting the draft document acting Health Minister of Ukraine Ulana Suprun said that the resolution would help retain regulation of prices of medicines and medical products and would give a transitive period to pharmaceutical institutions that would be able to sell ending stocks of medicines eligible to reimbursement before February 1, 2017.
The government has of approved a resolution introducing reference prices for medicines to treat cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and bronchial asthma from January 1, 2017 and launching the reimbursement program for them from April 1, 2017.
The price regulation would concern medicines included in the national list of major medicines and the international nonproprietary name (INN) list. The cost of these medicines is to be reimbursed.
The upper marketing markup for medicines that the state reimburses partially or in full is 5% and the upper retail markup with all taxes and duties is 15%.
The price of medicines in Poland, Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic are used to calculated reference prices of INN.
The reimbursement program for cardiovascular diseases includes 16 INN, for bronchial asthma – three INN and diabetes mellitus – two INN.
The national budget for 2017 would earmark 500 million UAH for the reimbursement project. (Interfax/Business World Magazine)