The government of Georgia introduced a new mechanism for regulating the price of medicines in January 2023.
All companies, importers, distributors and retailers were obliged to set the maximum upper limit for medicines according to the specified reference price.
The state regulation of the price on pharmaceutical products listed the reference countries: the Republic of Latvia, Montenegro, the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia.
However, the Association of Pharmaceutical Companies says that this reform cannot be considered a success for business due to several arguments.
The main thing that the Association of Pharmaceutical Companies is talking about is the flaw in the methodology and the incorrectly derived reference price. According to their assessment, the result of the regulation of drug prices is the risk of acute shortages and the fact that European, British and American drugs are replaced on the market by Asian products.
According to the association's information, at this stage there is an acute shortage of 1200 medicines on the market. This means that pharmacy chains are running out of medicines.
According to the statement of the Deputy Minister of Health, Ilia Ghudushauri: "We have the opportunity to see the full picture on the market, so the information regarding the reduction of the imports of European medicines is not true.
The commission has the right to make a different decision, and in 5 cases we made such a decision so that there would not be a shortage in the country regarding a specific medicine, so we will not accept speculation in this direction. The referral policy is quite successful," Deputy Health Minister Ilia Ghudushauri told bm.ge.
