The Competition Agency studied the Georgian pharmaceutical market on the instructions of the government. Irakli Lekvinadze, the Chairman of the Agency, presented the preliminary results of the study to the Prime Minister yesterday, and in the evening the mentioned document was published on the website of the Agency.
According to this study, the Competition Agency makes a number of recommendations to the state, including setting out the rules for prescribing generic medicines, as well as introducing GMP standards.
The document deals with the structure of the pharmaceutical companies themselves and their organizational arrangement. The Competition Agency calls on the state to impose restrictive norms on the market holding structure.
In another recommendation, the Competition Agency recommends restricting free pricing in certain segments of the pharmaceutical market, which means that pharmaceutical companies may set price limits for specific medicines.
The leading pharmacy chains of Georgia are members of a holding company and these holdings are represented in the retail and wholesale sector of medicines, as well as in the hospital and insurance sectors, and in some cases are related to the pharmaceutical industry. If the state imposes restrictive norms on such holdings, market-leading players, their chains and affiliates will face significant challenges.
“Based on the existing structure of the pharmaceutical market in the country, legislative regulation, effective enforcement of legislation, and the factual circumstances identified by the Agency’s analysis, to ensure maximum competition between substitute products and increase the share of generics, the Agency considers issuing 2 groups of recommendations:1. Recommendations that balance the possible negative impact of high market integration and holding structure; Neutralize alleged conflicts of interest and selfish relations and 2. Recommendations that enable the regulators to control the field effectively. According to the Agency, taking into account these recommendations, it is possible to achieve the best quality, price and increased choice of medicines in the market - improving the competitive environment in the market will ultimately lead to a significant reduction in consumer spending on medicines”, - the report reads.
