Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has passed a bill that will make innovative medicines cheaper, improving access for seriously ill Ukrainians.
The draft law allows the state to buy advanced medicines directly from the manufacturers under special Managed Entry Agreements (MEAs).
There are two kinds of MEAs. Financial agreements reduce the overall price of a drug. Outcome-based agreements make it possible for the state to only pay if a drug has helped a patient.
A total of 309 lawmakers endorsed the law in the final reading.
“The new legislation should help people suffering from diseases that have a severe, chronic course, are life-threatening and in need of lifelong and usually costly treatment,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
Financial MEAs are used in at least two-thirds of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries and European Union member states.
The Cabinet of Ministers will have to approve the list of medicines to be purchased under MEAs.
In early September, Health Minister Viktor Lyashko announced that Ukraine would become one of the first countries in the world to receive innovative drugs against COVID-19 produced by American company MSD.
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The Ministry declared boosting the supply of innovative medicines and immunobiological drugs on the Ukrainian market and creating opportunities for localization of their production in Ukraine its priority.
“The important tool is the adoption of the law on state support of projects with significant investments, the so-called “investment nannies” and the efficiency of the regulatory system in the circulation of medicines,” Lyashko said in a statement.
