Azerbaijan slashes prices for over 1,000 medicines

/By AzerNews/

By Nigar Orujova

Azerbaijan continues on its way to reduce prices for medicines in the country, releasing a list of the names of 801 more medicines due to receive price cuts.

The government had decided to strengthen state control over the pharmaceutical market since March. The process of price controls on essential medicines will be completed before the end of 2015.

The Tariff Council announced that it cut prices on 801 medicines at its latest meeting on August 25. A list of these medicines is available on the Council’s website.

The Tariff Council had already reduced prices for 256 medicines on July 30. As of now, the prices of 1057 essential medicines have been reduced, which will ultimately cut overall medical costs.

Earlier, Shahin Mustafayev, Minster of Economy and Industry and Chairman of the Tariff Council, said that state regulation would reduce the price of medicines more than two or three times.

Compared with current prices, the prices of 46 percent of cost-controlled medicines have been cut by more than half, and more than 24 percent of medicines by over three times.

In general, prices have fallen in 94 percent of all medicines that have regulated costs.

Thus, the prices have been confirmed on some 15 percent of medicines with the state registration that are significantly lower than the current price.

According to the decision, the prices of these medicines will come into force from September 15. Selling of medicines with these ingredients, the cost of which will not be confirmed by the date, might carry out only after the confirmation of the price.

It was announced at the meeting that the Council received documents to confirm the price of medicines for another 55 active substances. The deadline for registering medicines that contain these active substances has been set for September 10.

Currently, the country has registered more than 4,500 brands of more than 20,000 types of medicine. The number of cost-controlled pharmaceuticals will increase in the future.

All medicines imported to Azerbaijan are examined before reaching pharmacies and hospitals. The country bans the import of drugs into the country without a license, permission, or other relevant documents.

Medicine prices are compared with their minimum prices in at least 10 countries, which means that the process of regulating costs takes time. For this reason, the government has chosen to start with regulating essential pharmaceuticals first.