Russia may restrict drug imports from Western countries

The Russian Federation Council, the upper house of theFederal Assembly of the country, has put forward a proposal to restrict imports of drugs from Western countries to Russia, in response to sanctions, imposed on the country by the USA and the European Union, reports The Pharma Letter’s Russia correspondent.

According to Nikolay Zhuravlev, deputy chairman of the Council’s Committee on Budget and Financial Markets, there is a need to ban imports of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs from Western countries that have Russian analogues.

At the same time such a proposal has already sparked criticism from some Russian analysts in the pharmaceutical business field, according to whom Russian patients will be forced to switch to local generics and toxic substitutes of original drugs. Earlier, cheap generics have already replaced high-quality original drugs in a list of drugs which are purchased by the government for state needs.