Translated material
Preparatory mathematics
Benefit recipients will have to wait for the restoration of the Russian pharmaceutical industry
The Ministry of Health and Social Development has actually admitted that the funds budgeted for the implementation of the Additional Drug Supply (ADS) program for 2008 are insufficient . Yesterday, the head of the department, Tatyana Golikova, spoke at a meeting on social security issues in Ufa, where First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was present, and announced that the funding limit per beneficiary would be increased. True, so far in a very modest amount - from the current 417 rubles. up to 423 rub. However, as the head of the Ministry of Health and Social Development assured, the State Duma deputies, who approved the increase in the drug package for beneficiaries, gave “the right to the government to quarterly clarify the number of citizens with a corresponding increase in the size of the subvention transferred to the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation for the purpose of additional drug provision.”Authorities, therefore, assure that the limit will be able to increase further, but it is already obvious that the rate of this increase is clearly lower than the real needs of patients, for whom the state has taken care of the drug supply. Since the beginning of 2008, in many regions, on average, prescriptions in the amount of 500 to 1,200 rubles have been written per beneficiary. Officials believe that the only way to really reduce the gap between the financial capabilities of the DLO program and the needs of beneficiaries is to increase the share of Russian drugs, which will differ in price for the better from imported analogues. First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev yesterday confirmed the authorities' intention to concentrate on reviving the domestic pharmaceutical industry. “We must develop our pharmaceutical industry so that the drugs are good and inexpensive, and the names correspond to the chemical formula,” he emphasized at a meeting in Ufa, where, by the way, several large pharmaceutical enterprises are located.
However, some experts believe that it will be quite difficult to revive the medical industry in the form in which it existed in the USSR in the near future. Moreover, the authorities have chosen the old tactics - creating preferences for Russian companies while simultaneously increasing pressure on foreign manufacturers. “It is necessary to create conditions for the creation of production sites for the largest foreign companies throughout Russia. All of them already have large factories in India and Asian countries, so why don’t they do the same here,” says Alexander Kuzin, CEO of DSM Group. In a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, he expressed confidence that “if you don’t come up with anything original, but follow a well-known scheme, then in five years we will have both the production of generics and original drugs.” The whole point is to develop a legislative climate favorable for investment, the expert believes.
True, this approach is not yet of much interest to pharmaceutical giants, who are not ready to transfer the production of original and expensive drugs to our country. “We don’t really understand why Russia insists that all drugs must be produced here,” a representative of the Swiss company Roch told Vremya Novostei. “We will not produce serious original drugs in Russia, the manufacturing technology of which is kept in the strictest confidence.” According to foreign pharmaceutical manufacturers, Russia can succeed in the production of generics, which form the basis of all medicine consumption in our country. And including the basis of preferential state drug programs.