Georgian Health Minister Zurab Azarashvili on Monday said the Ministry was ensuring “daily” monitoring of oncological and other medical drugs in the domestic pharmaceutical market.
According to the Minister, pharmaceutical companies were fined GEL 53 million for conspiring to keep artificially inflated prices on oncology medicines funded within the state programme - a decision they could appeal in court.
He noted “special bases” had been created for the purpose of monitoring the ongoing prices of the drugs.
"The fact is quite clear of concerted actions of these companies against our country to pay much more money from the budget based on artificially increased prices”, he said.
Azarashvili added the violations meant consumers had been “left without medicines”, as the “three and four times” increased prices had resulted in "premature expenditure” of limited state funds designated for the medicines.
He said he hoped the “strict response” from the authorities would mean violations of the kind would not be repeated, and added provision of oncological medicines had begun to be “gradually taken over” by the state from this year.
