Evolution of the state price regulation system for medicines in Ukraine – the Center’s specialists took part in a round table with the participation of state institutions and the USAID/SAFEMed project.
The purpose of the event is to discuss the current state and existing mechanisms of state regulation of medicine prices in Ukraine, problematic aspects of their implementation, analysis of best international practices, and coordination of the responsible state bodies on the path to transforming disparate elements of the system into a unified state policy on pricing of medicinal products in Ukraine.
This meeting is a continuation of the dialogue between representatives of the SAFEMed project and the responsible government institutions involved in the process of state regulation of medicine prices in Ukraine – the MoH, the Center, the NHSU, and the State Enterprise “Medical Procurement of Ukraine.”
Kostiantyn Kosiachenko, Advisor to the Director of the Center, Doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Organization and Economics of Pharmacy at O.O. Bogomolets National Medical University, took part in the opening of the event.
On behalf of the Director of the Center, he thanked the organizers and partners for their support on the path to forming a unified state pricing policy for medicinal products in Ukraine and assured them of the Center's continued involvement in this process.
“In the area of pricing and state regulation of medicine prices, we must talk not only about cost but also about the value that medicines bring to the healthcare system. We are grateful to our permanent partners from WHO and the USAID/SAFEMed project, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, and the scientists working in this field for their assistance and close cooperation. Thanks to the consolidation of joint efforts and the introduction of new tools, today more and more patients have access to quality, safe and affordable medicinal products in Ukraine,” he noted.
Oresta Piniazhko, Director of the Center's Department of HTA and Rational Pharmacotherapy, took part in the round table panel discussion.
In her presentation, she shared her experience of applying value-based pricing (VBP) mechanisms in HTA procedures, in comparison with other pricing tools – external/internal reference pricing.
According to her, Value-Based Pricing should play one of the leading roles in the system of state price regulation in order to determine a fair price based on the pharmacoeconomic “cost-effectiveness” analysis model.
After the patent expires, the most effective will be competitive tender procurement, internal referencing.
It is important to reconsider the appropriateness of external reference pricing for the entire National List, since this tool is not the most effective for generics, so more effective tools and generally accepted European approaches to the pricing process need to be introduced.
Based on the results of the HTA, the Center provided the MoH of Ukraine with more than 90 recommendations in total on the inclusion in/exclusion from regulatory lists of medicinal products, – she noted. It is also important to introduce negotiation procedures for those medicinal products for which, based on the Value Based Pricing results, negotiations are needed and the fair price is higher than the recommended willingness-to-pay thresholds, but the medicinal product already faces generic competition on the market. And, accordingly, tools for fixing such a price.
Attention should be paid to the need for clear process timelines, in particular, for predictability of the procedure regarding decision-making deadlines.
Taking the opportunity, she thanked the SAFEMed project partners for their valuable advisory, methodological, and technical support on the path toward implementing a unified state pricing policy for medicinal products in Ukraine and for updating the issue of developing IT tools for price referencing.
During the round table, participants were able to:
- to exchange experience and analyze Ukrainian and best global policies of state regulation of prices for medicinal products;
- to discuss the problems of the current mechanism of reference pricing for medicinal products and prospects for change;
- to obtain professional recommendations from the WHO and proposals from the SAFEMed project on short-term and long-term improvement of price regulation policy:
- to reach agreements on joint activities of the responsible government bodies in the process of transforming the current pricing system into a unified state pricing policy in Ukraine;
- to outline the next steps of the roadmap for amending the regulatory framework in the field of pricing.
For information, one of the priority tasks of the SAFEMed project is technical, legal and financial support for improving mechanisms and introducing a unified systemic policy for regulating medicine prices in Ukraine.
