Ministry of Health of Ukraine plans to expand “Affordable Medicines” program in 2019

Roman Ilyk, Deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine, at the meeting with representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce (ACC) announced that the Ministry plans to expand the “Affordable Medicines” National Prescription Drug Cost Reimbursement Program with new nosologies and new INNs in 2019, and to include medicines procured for budget funds.

To implement this plan, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine has set up an expert group made of representatives of the State Expert Center of the MoH of Ukraine, the Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines, centralized public procurement specialists, and experts of the Safe, Affordable, and Effective Medicines (SAFEMed) project.

This working group should closely examine the current public procurement nomenclature and select medicines to be included in the reimbursement program. Then, the group should present clear mechanisms and a calendar plan for the ‘Affordable Medicines’ expansion based on the priority disease categories. Relevant proposals should be submitted to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine for coordination of their actions.

"The state should guarantee full financial support for each new medicine or nosology included in this government program. This means that we should not only transfer drugs from one program to another, but also ensure full funding to make prescription medicines more affordable and accessible to each patient," underlined Roman Ilyk.

At the meeting, participants were also briefed on the Ministry’s developments regarding the key changes in regulations of the pharmaceutical market, in particular, the introduction of the electronic prescription service and the implementation of the new European bioequivalence requirements. Moreover, the Ministry plans to discuss in detail the implementation of the mandatory coding and labeling of medicines in Ukraine at the next meeting with representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce.

The “Affordable Medicines” National Prescriprion Drug Cost Reimbursement Program is one of the key components of the healthcare transformation in Ukraine. The aim of this government program is to provide every citizen of Ukraine with safe and effective essential medicines to improve the quality of patients’ lives, to avoid or reduce severe complications.

The use of the reference pricing model (fixing new maximum wholesale prices according to the international reference pricing, using the comparable economies of the five neighboring countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Slovakia as reference) allowed to reduce prices for some medicine groups by up to 60%.

Detailed information about the Program: http://en.moz.gov.ua/affordable-medicines

The Affordable Medicines website (in Ukrainian): http://liky.gov.ua/