ArmInfo. The National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia Committee on Healthcare held a working discussion on the process of state registration of medicines, existing problems and mechanisms aimed at solving them.
As reported by the press service of the National Assembly, the chairman of the committee Arsen Torosyan emphasized the importance of such discussions in terms of raising problems in the sector and identifying the necessary tools for their resolution.
Chairman of the Association of Independent Pharmacies Artur Khachatryan touched upon two industry issues: availability of medicines and the process of checking their quality and safety. Having presented a number of statistical data and studies, Artur Khachatryan expressed the opinion that if the issue of legal access to medicines in Armenia is not resolved, the circulation of drugs by contraband and unregistered means will continue. The speaker also spoke about the need to regulate the sphere at the legislative level. In his opinion, it is necessary to study the list of the Unified Register of the EAEU, and since these drugs are registered in the same regulatory manner as in the Republic of Armenia, then the register should also include those drugs that are necessary for the population of the republic. According to Artur Khachatryan, laboratory examination of the quality of drugs in the country should become mandatory, taking into account previous legal experience.
In turn, the RA Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan assured that issues related to the pharmaceutical market and drug safety are in the center of attention of the department. The Minister dwelt in detail on the procedures for registering drugs, noting that Armenia, being a member state of the EAEU, is bound by the relevant legislation and is obliged to comply with the rules of the EAEU. According to the Minister, the country cannot have rules different from the rules of the EAEU. Speaking about the issue of quality control of drugs, the Minister said that the examination of drugs by the Center for Expertise of Drugs is not mandatory, it is carried out by the importer based on its internal examination. There is also an electronic system for quality control of drugs, where no problems with the quality of drugs arise based on information about the imported goods.
Anahit Avanesyan said that it is planned to amend the law "On Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances", adopted back in 2016. All interested parties will be invited to the discussions.
During the discussion, issues related to the procedure for importing unregistered medicines, opportunities for expanding national registration mechanisms, the effectiveness of public procurement in the medicines market, the conditions for importing a certain volume of medicines for personal use, as well as a number of problems requiring a legislative solution were discussed.
According to the agreement reached, the participants in the discussion will soon submit written proposals that can form the basis for the necessary legislative amendments.
It should be noted that, according to research conducted by the Association, there are 2,620 licensed pharmacies in Armenia. The annual turnover of medicines in Armenia is approximately $125 million.