A petition to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine against banning the use of Tabletki.ua and other drug price aggregators has received the necessary number of votes for consideration.
This is evidenced by the data in the Electronic Petitions section on the portal of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Ukrainian News Agency reports.
According to the petition, on April 18, a draft government resolution was published on the website of the State Service of Ukraine on Medicines and Drugs Control "On Amendments to the Licensing Conditions for Conducting Economic Activities for the Production of Medicinal Products, Wholesale and Retail Trade of Medicinal Products, Import of Medicinal Products", which allows pharmacies to post information about medicinal products only on websites of other pharmacies.
At the same time, the authors of the petition believe that this document unjustifiably and illegally displaces drug price aggregators from the market, violates the rights of consumers and worsens the situation of most pharmacies.
"The ban on the use of Tabletki.ua and other price aggregators is a blow to both the consumer and the market. The consumer will lose an independent source of information about available drugs and price offers with discounts for them, and pharmacies that do not have the financial ability to develop their own product website will lose an important channel of communication with the consumer. Competition for the consumer will suffer - the range of medicines will decrease, prices will rise, large pharmacies will gain an advantage over smaller ones," the petition states.
It is noted that currently almost all pharmacies are connected to price aggregators, with their help more than 30% of all drug sales are carried out.
Thus, in April 2024, more than 4 million Ukrainians made 12.6 million reservations on Tabletki.ua.
"It is thanks to price aggregators that pharmacies began to compete more actively for consumers - they keep the competitive assortment and lower prices. Today, the average discount price on medicines offered by pharmacies to users of price aggregators is 15%. The Tabletki.ua service saved Ukrainian consumers in 2023 more than UAH 3 billion when buying drugs in pharmacies due to market transparency," the petition states.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in February, the Cabinet of Ministers allowed preventive vaccinations to be carried out in pharmacies.
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