For several years volunteers of the Ukrainian Association of Retired Persons have been monitoring prices in pharmacies in various cities of Ukraine, which allows us to detect the rising cost of drugs and to attract attention of public and public authorities to this sharp social problem.
We have already expressed our opinion on this subject (see, for example, the article "unbridled prices in pharmacies or the lack of state policy?" on our site www.uarp.org ), but pharmaceutical market, unfortunately, is still ignored by government authorities.
The vast majority of businessmen from the pharmaceutical market are trying to justify their schemes of drug supply to pharmaceutical networks by growing prices of imported products. Drugstore managers plead businessmen. It is difficult to find “who is left holding the baby”. But we can find out (thanks to our monitoring) how some chains of pharmacies mark up prices on domestic medical drugs. Moreover, the same drugs are sold at different prices, and the difference reaches 20-26 %.
As you can see from this table, it does not seem to be possible to induce some kind of regularity in such differences from a position of common sense. For example, drops Barboval (in vials of 25 ml) produced by Kyiv enterprise "FARMAK" can be purchased in pharmacies of Odessa at 7 UAH. 90 kop., in Dnipropetrovsk - at 10.00 -10.48 , and in the capital (where this drug is produced!) - at up to 10.62 , that means 40% dearer than in Odessa! .
A comparative table of prices in Ukrainian pharmacies on some medicines of domestic producers
Name of medication
|
City
|
Pharmacy
|
Address
|
Price, UAH.
|
A-dyston, drops 30 ml
|
Kyiv
|
Pharmacy in Artem street
|
str. Artem str. , 55
|
15.90
|
A-dyston, drops 30 ml
|
Kyiv
|
Alho Farm
|
str. Yakir, 14
|
15.90
|
A-dyston, drops 30 ml
|
Kyiv
|
Leka-Farm
|
pr. Kurbas, 2/13
|
14.42
|
A-dyston, drops 30 ml
|
Dnipropetrovsk
|
Pharmacy network "Ne bolej"
|
Network throughout the city
|
17.66
|
A-dyston, drops 30 ml
|
Dnipropetrovsk
|
“VIVAT+”
|
Zaporizhzhya highway, 72
|
14.70
|
A-dyston, drops 30 ml
|
Dnipropetrovsk
|
"Mikton"
|
str. Karun, 14
|
14.08
|
A-dyston, drops 30 ml
|
Odessa
|
|
|
Only 50 ml vials
|
A-dyston, drops 30 ml
|
Odessa
|
|
|
Only 50 ml vials
|
A-dyston, drops 30 ml
|
Odessa
|
|
|
Only 50 ml vials
|
Barboval, drops 25 ml
|
Kyiv
|
Alho Farm
|
str. Yakir, 14
|
10.30
|
Barboval, drops 25 ml
|
Kyiv
|
Pharmacy 24
|
str. Uborevych, 3
|
11.20
|
Barboval, drops 25 ml
|
Kyiv
|
"Heleksy"
|
str. Yerevanska, 7
|
10.62
|
Barboval, drops 25 ml
|
Dnipropetrovsk
|
Pharmacy network "Ne bolej"
|
Network throughout the city
|
10.48
|
Barboval, drops 25 ml
|
Dnipropetrovsk
|
"Mikton"
|
str. Karun, 14
|
10.21
|
Barboval, drops 25 ml
|
Dnipropetrovsk
|
"Akzent Zdorovya"
|
Zaporizhzhya highway, 45
|
10.00
|
Barboval, drops 25 ml
|
Odessa
|
"Annushka"
|
str. Dobrovolskoho, 73
|
7.90
|
Barboval, drops 25 ml
|
Odessa
|
"Annushka"
|
str. Zabolotnoho, 50
|
7.90
|
Barboval, drops 25 ml
|
Odessa
|
"Annushka"
|
str. Sodostroitelnaya, 13
|
7.90
|
It would be very interesting to see what other reasons crooks from pharmacies would invent to justify their schemes? It's time, when law enforcement agencies do not even need to employ experienced investigators in order to catch criminals! To do this it would be enough to visit just a few pharmacies and check the appropriate procurement documents.
Oleg Kravchenko.