Prices for hundreds of sought-after medicines drop by 60-70% - PM

The prices of about 200 of the most sought-after medicinal drugs on the local market have decreased by 60-70 percent since the launch of the Government initiative to import medications from Turkey, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said on Monday. 

Over 100,000 medications have been registered in a push to effect a reduction of prices for the most in-demand drugs, the PM was quoted as saying by the Government Administration. 

Our goal is to make the pharmaceutical field as open as possible, transparent, competitive, and to set fair prices for medicines,” Garibashvili said in comments at the weekly Government meeting.

The Government head also said starting Monday, prescribing psychotropic medications would only be permitted in digital form, noting the move would “significantly limit” misuse of such drugs. 

• Electronic prescription to be mandatory for psychiatrists starting next week

Garibashvili said the digital prescription would facilitate monitoring of both pharmaceutical institutions and the doctors prescribing the drugs, and enable the Government to observe the process through the digitisation of the turnover of psychotropic drugs on the local market.

Also starting today, doctors in Georgia will be able to only prescribe generic medications to their patients, without specifying a brand of the drug, with the PM calling the change a “very important reform.”

Garibashvili said pharmacists would offer citizens three of the cheapest drugs on the list of generic medicines, saying the Government expected the initiative would eliminate unfair marketing and artificially rising prices for medicines.