Tbilisi: The Georgian Ministry of Health will set reference prices for medicines from January 15, 2023. It will be fully effective from February 15, and every company, importer, distributor or retailer will be obliged to impose the maximum cap on these prices”, said Zurab Azarashvili.
According to the Minister of Health, the pharmaceutical sector will have a deadline to review the prices until January 31. If the sector, which is a valid argument for the reference prices of any medicine, the special council set up at the Ministry will consider the matter.
According to the minister, the establishment of benchmark pricing is one of the components of the reform that aims to provide citizens with maximum affordable and quality health care, or medicines.
The minister also talked about control and enforcement mechanisms and noted that violators will face different kinds of sanctions.
“We have put in place a very important control mechanism in drug law, which requires any wholesale and retail network to have the regulatory agency disclose residues, drug lists and prices.”
This is a very important mechanism, not only for reference pricing goals, but for goals related to e-prescription, drug movement in the country, preventing artificial shortages, etc “,- said Zurab Azarashvili.
According to the Minister of Health, the agency is working on creating a system of drug research in parallel. The system will allow anyone, as well as the regulators, to easily access Medicare information via their barcode. As per Health Minister Zurab Azarashvili, this will be another important step to control the circulation of counterfeit and expired medicines.
