Reference pricing in Russia corresponds best practices of price regulation

Speaking at OECD Competition Committee in Paris, Deputy Head of FAS discussed a set of FAS measures towards reducing the maximum ex-works manufacturer prices registered in Russia for medicine to the minimum prices in the reference countries for Russia

On 28 November 2018, the Competition Committee of the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) held the Round Table on “Excessive pricing in the pharmaceutical sector”.

Deputy Head of FAS reported that one of major requirement in force since 2010 is setting prices in Russia in line with the minimum level of prices for the same medicines in the reference countries for Russia.

FAS carried out an international comparative price analysis and found that prices for some medicines in Russia were considerably higher in comparison with the minimum ex-works prices in many countries of the world, particularly, the reference countries for Russia.

“Thanks to the measures under taken by FAS, prices for more than 1000 early registered, expensive vital and essential medicines were reduced significantly, which saved more than 5 billion RUB budgetary funds”, informed Andrey Tsyganov.

As a result of the survey, FAS identified countries with sustainably high or low levels of medicine prices.

Due to the above, a Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation is drafted obligating owners or holders of medicine registration certificates to review the registered medicine prices in case their reduction in the reference countries.

“In other countries the practice of using price information of other countries is widely popular in the global experience of medicine price regulation. FAS analyzed the European experience of applying external price regulation and concluded that the current principle of using prices in the reference countries conforms to the European practice of prices of regulation as well as the positive experience of considerable price reduction in Russia for expensive medicines”, concluded Deputy Head of FAS.