Opening pharmacies at municipal medical institutions will reduce drug prices by eliminating rent payments – Liashko

Opening pharmacies in the structure of municipal medical institutions will allow reducing drug prices by eliminating rent, Health Minister Viktor Liashko has said.

"We are working on creating pharmacies in healthcare institutions as their structural units. Just this week, we had another meeting with healthcare departments, where we worked on the algorithm, because pharmacies are already being launched in hospitals. Why is it important for us that they appear there? Because a pharmacy as a structural unit in a hospital does not pay rent, local governments do, and then the markup on a medicine may be lower," he said at a briefing on Wednesday.

The minister clarified that currently "pharmacies in hospitals are areas rented by a legal entity that is not municipal property."

"Our task is to create a structural unit. We have such cases, and we see that we can balance at the level of a markup of 8-10%, when there are up to 35% in other pharmacies," he said.

Liashko noted that in such pharmacies "it will be possible to purchase a medicine almost at the manufacturer's cost."

"But the key thing for us is that people don't even buy it, but go to a doctor, get a prescription and, under the "Affordable Medicines" program, receive this drug for free or with a small surcharge," he said.

At the same time, commenting on the provision of medicines to the population in rural areas, According to Liashko, currently, out of 3,000 paramedic and obstetrician points in the country, 1,700 dispense medicines.