Will medicines be cheaper?

Medicaments in Lithuania may become cheaper but their range will become wider.  This will be possible owing to the production of packaging in Polish and Lithuanian.

Gintautas Barcys, Director of the National Service for Quality Control of Medicines (PSKJL) and Cessak Gregory, president of the Office for Registration of Medicinal Products, Medical Devices and Biocides, have signed an agreement this week under which Lithuania and Poland will develop cooperation in the production of uniform packaging of pharmaceutical preparations.

“We would like a wider range of drugs was more available to our residents. We also hope that the medicines will become cheaper. Thanks to the agreement with Poland our pharmaceutical producers will be able to make drugs in a cheaper way”, told “Kurier” Gintautas Barcys.

Barcys said that the currently occurring drug shortages are due to the requirements that packages and leaflets have to be translated to the language of the country where they are going to be sold.

“If we need only 1000 packages of a drug per year, its production is simply inconvenient. It is very often not profitable to make packages in the state language in Lithuania because our market is too small”, explains Barcys. “The Polish market is much more bigger. That is why we expect the drug production costs for both markets to be lower. Lithuanian medicines will be available in Poland and Polish ones in Lithuania.” The director also emphasized that it is not known yet how much drugs will become cheaper on the Lithuanian market.

Already this year, the Polish and Lithuanian drug manufacturers will manage to use the possibility of drug production according to the new rules. It is over a month left to the end of the year, while there is more time needed for the changes to be introduced. However, next year you can expect to find bilingual packaging in pharmacies”, said Gintautas Barcys.

In the Polish-Lithuanian cooperation agreement it is anticipated to monitor pharmaceutical preparations on both markets and to improve the drug availability system. Both countries will be able to share information on the drug consumption. The sides also agreed to organize joint audits in registration, quality and safety of medicinal products.