AFTER SWITCHING TO NEW PRINCIPLES OF MEDICINE PRICING, TOTAL BUDGET SAVINGS MAY AMOUNT TO 35 BILLION RUB PER YEAR

As part of the price review, the antimonopoly service reduced more than 7 thousand prices for vital medicine and set 20 new prices for ones in short supply, ensuring their preservation in the market

"For 5 years, we have made a switch to balanced medicine pricing system, which is based on objective data available in open sources. It is focused on maintaining prices for vital medicines at an economically reasonable level, that is, at the level of benchmark countries against Russia," said Timofey Nizhegorodtsev, the Deputy Head of the FAS Russia, at the round table entitled "Three keys to the medicine market: pricing, registration, quality control", which was held within the framework of the forum "Medicine Safety".

The upgraded pricing system is based on two counter processes: it allows not only to reduce the inflated prices of producers of vital medicines to the average European level, but also to raise to an economically reasonable level the prices for medicines that have not changed for 10 years, and the production of which has become unprofitable.

In January 2021, the FAS of Russia completed switching to new pricing principles, reviewing 14 thousand prices for vital medicines. As a result, more than 7 thousand prices were reduced, and the average price reduction was more than 30%. The total savings of public funds in 2021, according to the calculations of pharmaceutical producers, will be at least 35 billion rubles. Furthermore, the FAS Russia has established 59 prices for 20 medicines in short supply to date, ensuring their preservation in the market. The antimonopoly service also carries out control and monitoring of prices for medicines in the event of a decline in the reference countries. To date, the FAS Russia has received 13 notifications from producers about reducing prices for vital medicines.

"Of course, the reviewing of prices, taking into account the indices of international markets, affected the profits of pharmaceutical companies. As part of the price review, individual market participants made attempts to create the impression that pricing is the main trigger for the withdrawal of medicines from the market, although neither their own actions nor statistics confirm this," said Timofey Nizhegorodtsev. - There are examples when companies within the framework of the price review reduced prices by 10 times and did not leave the market, but continue to supply medicines in full".

Speaking about the registration of prices for vital medicines in Russia, the representative of the antimonopoly service noted: "The formed pricing system is as transparent as possible. Its essence is that the prices for original medicines are registered on the basis of prices for the same medicines in the reference countries, and the prices for generic medicines are based on the prices for original ones. At the same time, this relationship is inextricably established with certain positive exceptions. We are talking about preferences in the registration of prices for domestic medicines of orphan medicines, the first registered generics, biological medicines, as well as for medicines of the lower price segment".

Further work of the antimonopoly authority on improving the pricing system for vital medicines will include the development of a system for monitoring and verifying data on prices for medicines around the world.