Press Release, 18.01.2016

Igor Artemyev, head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service and member of YABLOKO’s Political Party, forwarded a letter to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev informing Prime Minister about a catastrophic situation in Russian pharmaceuticals market.

Artemyev noted that dozens of thousands of Russian citizens, including those suffering from various forms of cancer, could not get the latest foreign medicines which resulted in a rapid increase of the number of deaths.

At present the latest foreign pharmaceuticals are virtually not delivered to Russia, as, according to the Russian law, registration of any pharmaceutical in Russia requires conducting local clinical studies, even if there are of international clinical studies.

This prohibition applies to all organisations, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), albeit their ability to ensure high quality and safety of products of any pharmaceutical company is common knowledge. Thus, foreign manufacturers have to either give up the registration procedure or conduct once again costly and already redundant research that may last for several years.

Artemyev proposes to cardinally change the discriminatory provision of the law “On the Circulation of Medicines”, and allow for unrestricted deliveries to the Russian market of pharmaceuticals from the countries that switched to the GCP standard (the standard of ethical norms and high quality of research). First of all this refers to the medicines registered in the US and the European Union.

“I hope Igor Artemyev will be heard, then we will not only be taking care of the health of our citizens, but also will make a step toward civilized society. All these obstacles for deliveries of foreign medicines to the Russian market represent a legacy of the Soviet system, which still has remained unchanged in many areas,” YABLOKO Chair Emilia Slabunova commented on the letter by the head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service.