President Poroshenko signs law on simplified registration of medicines

Today, the President of Ukraine has signed the Law of Ukraine No.1350 (known as the bill No. 4484) aimed at simplifying the registration of foreign medicines in Ukraine.

The Human Rights Information Centre correspondent learnt this from the press service of the Charitable Foundation “Patients of Ukraine.”

As the press service noted, Olha Stefanyshyna, the Foundation’s Executive Director, personally attended the signing of the law at the invitation of the Presidential Administration.

The press service of the Foundation explained that the signed law would make possible to register the medicines, imported from countries with strict regulatory standards to Ukraine, during 17 days. In particular, Ukraine will register the medicines from the US, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Japan and the EU (with the centralized procedure for medicines registration) under the simplified procedure.

“Due to the fact that the President has signed this important law today, the patients will be able to get the necessary medicines in Ukraine, not to obtain them as a result of illicit trafficking or overpay on the black market. The simplified registration for quality medicines is the first step towards deregulating the pharmaceutical market and making drugs really available for Ukrainians. We hope that the authorities will remove bureaucratic hurdles, corruption components and will finally deregulate the pharmaceutical market,” Olha Stefanyshyna, the Executive Director of the Charitable Foundation “Patients of Ukraine”, said.

As reported, May 31, the Ukrainian Parliament passed the law on reducing the term of registration of medicines to 10 days. The document also provides for simplification of the procedure for the medicines already registered in the EU, US, Switzerland, Australia and Canada.

The first version of the bill was registered by Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on April 20. However, several days later, the activists of the patient organizations noticed that the version of the document on deregulation had been replaced with the bill, which even tightened the regulation of the pharmaceutical market. After the action “Let’s destroy the pharmaceutical curtain” and at the instruction of the Prime Minister, a series of meetings with experts and the public were held, resulting in the new text of the bill, which does not contain corruption components. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine supported this bill and the President of Ukraine has signed it today.

According to statistics cited by the Charitable Foundation “Patients of Ukraine”, 80% of city dwellers and 82% of the villagers in Ukraine cannot afford buying medicines because of their high cost. One-third of the families, who have a seriously ill patient, live below the poverty line due to the high cost of treatment. Ukraine has registered 9,900 types of medicines, while almost 16,000 have been registered in France.