Domestic pharmaceutical industry has been cooperating with the Ministry of Health since the first days of the war

Cooperation of domestic pharmaceutical companies with the government is the basis of strong pharmaceutical defence and national security. The Ministry of Health has made a number of alterations that have eased the burden on pharmaceutical manufacturers, as well as has helped saturating the market promptly and providing the state with the necessary medicines and drugs. These alterations concerned, in particular, the procedures for simplification of the state registration and re-registration of medicines for the period of martial law.

According to the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), a total of 400 unique INNs (international non-proprietary names) have been added to the National List of Medicinal Products, of which 243 are manufactured in Ukraine accounting for 60.75%. Domestic manufacturers of medicines, which are the members of the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs, are ready to start production of new generic medicines on their manufacturing sites, if the state guarantees to purchase them in a centralized way. The import dependence of the pharmaceutical industry should be reduced. This fact was first proved by the pandemic, now it is proved by the war. The Ministry of Health is also taking steps in this direction: in March, it officially urged the Ukrainians to buy medicines based on their active ingredient and availability in pharmacies, rather than on the brand name.

The state also took measures to prevent trade relations with the aggressor country. New law No. 7313 of 25.04.2022 on the refusal to register drugs manufactured in Russia or Belarus was fully supported by the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada. In addition, the Ministry of Health declares its position on removing international pharmaceutical companies operating in the Ukrainian market from the market of the aggressor country, or at least on reducing the range of goods in Russia.

As previously reported, on January 17 this year, the Minister of Health Viktor Lyashko visited the Darnitsa plant. The aim of the Minister’s visit was to make sure that the company is able to provide the level of production capacity and quality sufficient to meet the needs of the health care system of Ukraine. Therefore, the Minister's expectations for the most powerful domestic producer, Darnitsa company, live up during the war.

From the first day of military aggression, the pharmaceutical company Darnitsa has been closely cooperating with the Ministry of Health at all times. According to the Ministry of Health, Pharmaceutical Company Darnitsa provided the Ministry of Health with 565,000 packages of free medicines totalling over UAH 68.8 million. They include antidotes, cardiac drugs, solutions for infusion, antibiotics, analgesics and others. The company is also cooperating with the Ministry of Health on possible attacks using chemical or nuclear weapons. To protect against chemical weapons, the Ministry of Health has been provided at no cost with 20,000 doses of Atropine Darnitsa and 550,000 doses of Platyphyllin Darnitsa, as well as 5.25 million doses of Potassium Iodide-125-Darnitsa in the event of radiation damage.

The support of the Ministry of Health was also important for Darnitsa in obtaining the COVID-19 medicines manufacturing license and transfer of mRNA vaccines technology from the WHO. It is worth reminding that in March 2022 Darnitsa company officially won the competition and signed an agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool to obtain a license for development and manufacture of a generic version of Pfizer – PAXLOVIDTM. This is an oral drug for COVID-19. Currently, Darnitsa is the first and only pharmaceutical company in Ukraine authorised to develop and manufacture this drug for sale in 95 countries around the world, including Ukraine. Also, the World Health Organization (WHO) has officially named the domestic pharmaceutical company Darnitsa as the only one in Ukraine to receive mRNA vaccine technology.

Reference

PJSC pharmaceutical company Darnitsa was founded in 1930. Since 1998, Darnitsa has been the leader in Ukraine as for drug production in physical terms. Strategic areas of products portfolio development include cardiology, neurology, and pain management. During the war, Darnitsa has passed 1.3 million packages of medicines at a cost of UAH 108.5 million for charitable uses to MOH, Ukrainian Armed Forces, hospitals and charity organisations.

*In physical terms according to Proxima Research 2021-2022

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