Zurab Azarashvili, Minister of Health declares that an artificial shortage of medicine cannot be created, otherwise the Ministry will respond accordingly.
"We set two types of prices: one is set separately for original manufacturers, another one for generic drugs. Under the conditions of these two prices, the business has an interest in continuing the operation, because exactly the same producers operate successfully in different countries. Therefore, there is no danger of a shortage of drugs, and if there is a deliberate attempt at sabotage, we have a corresponding plan for this as well. I don't mean the sector as a whole. Sabotage refers to the [possible] action of specific companies. I don't rule it out, but we are ready and we will have an appropriate response", the minister said.
According to Azarashvili, the sabotage attempt took place at the initial stage, when the government started medicine imports from Turkey and the business did not import the appropriate amount of medicines.
Based on this experience, the regulatory agency actively cooperates with the competition agency in the part when the consumer is not deliberately misled or artificially created the deficit. It is directly written in the law and it provides quite high fines. After the bad experience we had with Turkish medicines, we set up a [mechanism] together with the competition agency, and it will be very sad if we need it, but we will use it if necessary", Azarashvili said.
