ANDREY TSARIKOVSKIY: HOW TO MAINTAIN BALANCE BETWEEN REGULATING PHARMACUTICAL MARKET AND COMPETITION DEVELOPMENT?

Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsarikovskiy discussed specifics of state regulation of the medicine market and Russian experience in this field

On 28 February 2019, Minsk (Belarus) hosted a Round Table on the “Common market of medicines. Reference pricing”. The purpose of the event was to exchange experience and practices of market regulation.  

Andrey Tsarikovskiy reminded that on27 February 2019, the Agreement on Cooperation in the filed of competition protection was signed in Moscow between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of Belarus.  

He said: “This is an intergovernmental Agreement and its compliance is mandatory for all market players. The Agreement provides, in particular, for joint investigations, especially of such dangerous economic violations as cartels as a result of which high prices for goods are fixed and maintained”.

Discussing the experience of Russia in pharmaceutical market regulation, Deputy Head of FAS emphasized that this market is very sensitive for the population.

“The complexity of regulating the medicine market is the need to achieve a hard combination: it is necessary that all medicinal drugs pass al clinical trials and are on sale at reasonable prices but at the same time there should be competition on the market. These are often opposing tasks”, explained Andrey Tsarikovskiy. “We moved ahead in this direction: FAS introduced the principle of reference pricing when we compare Russian prices with drug prices in other countries”.

He concluded: “We have managed to streamline and make such pricing clear, which, in its turn, develop competition on the market, provided that the volume of supplied medicines is maintained”.