The price of medicines has increased significantly during the last year. The GEL exchange rate is often considered as one of the reasons for this, as most of the medicines are imported to Georgia and some of them are manufactured here with raw materials even bought abroad. However, the price for some medicines was five times higher than the depreciation rate during the whole year. Experts attribute this to cartel deals between oligopolies and companies in the pharmaceutical sector. We are dealing with an alliance of pharmaceutical companies and medical institutions artificially raising prices and promoting the sales of unnecessary medication for the patient even in an excessive amount. Consequently, the turnover of only three major companies operating in the pharmaceutical market reached GEL 1.6 billion last year.

Marina Beradze, Health Expert:

- The main goal of regulation of the pharmaceutical sector is to provide people with quality and affordable medicines. Unless these conditions are met, no health care reform will make sense. The pharmaceutical sector should be regulated by a strong legal framework; pharmacy is not a pure business, and it cannot be applied through the “buy and sell” principle.

Today, a pharmaceutical company has all the possibilities to increase the price of drugs at its discretion, since the government cannot interfere in the pricing process. Manufacturing, wholesale and retail realization of pharmaceutical products is forbidden to be managed by one entity in all developed countries and it's incredible that the same business entity has a medical facility and an insurance company concurrently.

Not only imported medicines, but also those manufactured in Georgia are cheaper in neighboring Armenia than in our country, because the pharmaceutical sector is regulated and retail and wholesale prices are separated by the law there. Lately, our citizens have been moving to Turkey to buy drugs, since they are sometimes four or five times cheaper there. Private individuals at the customs checkpoint of Georgia are subject to price differences for the medicines imported from Turkey. This still indicates that pharmaceutical business monsters are using all means to prevent SMEs from developing.