Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

The government of Azerbaijan continues to regulate the sale of medicines in pharmacies.

Tariff Council recently has approved the prices of another 1,427 kinds of medicines.

Prices for 90 percent of the drugs have been lowered, according to the Tariff Council. The prices for 26 percent of medicines are reduced by more than half and the prices of 11 percent of drugs are decreased by more than three times.

The government had decided to strengthen state control over the pharmaceutical market by regulating the process of price controls from September 2015.

So far, the Tariff Council has approved prices for 7,075 drugs, which make up 77 percent of medicines registered in the country.

Some 5,741 medicines have are already sold on the approved prices. The prices for 1,334 drugs will come into force from June 2016.

The deadline for submission of documents for approval of drug prices, whose value has not been adjusted, is April 22.

The country permits the sale of only registered medicines, the number of which reaches about 4,500 brands of more than 20,000 types of medicine.

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

A total of 57 percent of medicines registered in Azerbaijan are produced in Europe, 26 percent in the CIS countries, including 12 percent made in Russia. The small proportion is the medicine produced in Asian countries.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz