Russia imposes restrictions on purchases of imported drugs for state needs

Russia plans to impose restrictions on the purchases of imported drugs for state needs, to index prices for drugs costing no more than 50 roubles ($0.71) and to provide additional 16 billion roubles ($229 million) for the purchase of drugs for welfare beneficiaries, due to the devaluation of the national currency, according to an anti-crisis plan, which was yesterday approved by the Russian government.

As part of these measures, the government will amend the existing federal law "On Turnover of Drugs in Russia," in order to allow a one-time indexing of prices for drugs that are subject to price regulation, The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent reports.

However, this will apply only to cheap drugs from the list of vital and essential medicines. According to the Russian Minister of Health, Veronika Skvortsova, the biggest price growth is mostly observed in the segment of cheap drugs.