Pharmaceutical activity will be carried out on the basis of authorization, the amount of which will be significantly higher in Chisinau than in other cities
This is stipulated in the draft of the new Law on Pharmacy developed by the Ministry of Health. The new law will regulate the procedure of authorization and conducting pharmaceutical activity in Moldova, will establish requirements for operators of this market and competent state bodies. The draft law has been elaborated taking into account the European directives. One of the changes is that the pharmaceutical activity will no longer be a licensed economic activity (the cost of the license is 3250 lei), but will be carried out on the basis of the authorization of the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices. The cost of authorization will be differentiated - depending on the type of locality where the operator will work, but it has not been determined yet. The authorization will be issued for an unlimited period of time. Director of the agency Dragos Gutu reported at a meeting of the Economic Press Club that a permit fee of 200 thousand lei is currently being discussed for opening a pharmacy in Chisinau, 50 thousand lei in other municipalities and 20-30 thousand lei in other localities of the country. At the same time, community pharmacies located in the villages of Moldova will be exempt from the fee for issuing or reissuing authorization for pharmaceutical activity. Changing the location of pharmacies is possible only within one locality, and the size of the permit in this case will be 50% of the base rate. Dragos Gutu noted that such an approach is proposed to be implemented in order to demotivate the owners of pharmaceutical companies to open pharmacies in Chisinau, where there are too many of them. At the same time, representatives of pharmacy chains at a meeting of the Club said that in this case, the owners of the pharmaceutical business will be forced to revise their business plans and close less profitable pharmacies. The methodology for calculating the permit fee is to be considered after the approval of the new law. It is worth noting that today there are 1,415 pharmacies in Moldova, half of the networks have national coverage, but most of the pharmacies are located in Chisinau. To ensure access of the rural population to medicines and medical products, the state promotes the "Pharmacy in Your Village" program, under which companies receive subsidies for opening rural pharmacies. // 27.11.2024 - InfoMarket.
